Shocking Behavior Sets New Standard for Terminating Sanctions
By Carl Mueller, The Maloney Firm, APC
 

In a recent decision, Crawford v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., the California Appellate Court definitively set the upward limit on abusive behavior during a deposition:

If ever a case required terminating sanctions, this is it. Crawford threatened to use pepper spray and a taser on opposing counsel and was openly contemptuous of the trial court. He made it impossible to continue with the litigation. Far from the trial court abusing its discretion, it would have been an abuse of discretion not to impose a terminating sanction.

Crawford v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. (2015) Appellate Case No. B257412 (emphasis added).

 
To be sure, the behavior of the attorney in question, the named appellant, Mr. Crawford, was particularly egregious. At his deposition, Mr. Crawford produced a can of pepper spray during initial admonitions said:

Mr. Traver, if things get out of hand, I brought a what is legally pepper spray, and I will pepper spray you if you get out of hand.

Which Mr. Crawford followed by producing a stun gun and saying:

If that doesn’t quell you, this is a flashlight that turns into a stun gun.

Mr. Crawford then demonstratively discharged the stun gun twice.
 

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