No Lost Profits For Violation of Protective Order

The court denied defendants' motion for contempt for plaintiff's violation of a protective order, and denied defendant's request for lost profits resulting from such violation, but instead granted an award of attorneys' fees under Rule 37. "[Plaintiff's] violation of the Protective Order, while not contempt, is still sanctionable under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37 . . . . The defendants argue that the Court should order [plaintiff] to reimburse the defendants $573,149 for lost profits from sales to four distributors that were allegedly 'destroyed' as a result of [plaintiff's] letters. . . . The only evidence proffered by the defendants is [defendant's CFO's] bald assertion; there are no declarations or communications from the distributors reflecting that the letters from [plaintiff] had any impact on the distributors, much less that the letters caused them to cancel the purchase orders. [The CFO's] unsupported assertion is an insufficient evidentiary basis for the monetary remedies the defendants seek."

LifeScan Scotland, Ltd. v. Shasta Technologies, LLC et. al., 3-11-cv-04494 (CAND November 6, 2013, Order) (Orrick, J.)