Sanction threat looms for Facebook and Gibson Dunn in privacy class action
I've been following this case in San Francisco, sometimes referred to as the Cambridge Analytica coverup suit, that has to do with FB's data harvesting & sharing. Facebook were getting ripped by the judge last week, it was a thing of beauty. The judge was pissed at them & invited the plaintiffs to file for sanctions against Facebook AND partners at the law firm representing them in the case, Gibson Dunn.
Sanction threat looms for Facebook and Gibson Dunn in privacy class action
[link:https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/sanction-threat-looms-facebook-gibson-dunn-privacy-class-action-2022-02-14/|]
Facebook Inc and its lawyers at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher are learning the hard way that fierce litigation tactics can provoke equally fierce blowback.
At a hearing Thursday in a class action alleging that Facebook (now Meta Platforms Inc) violated consumer privacy laws by sharing users’ data with the political consultant Cambridge Analytica and others, U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria of San Francisco invited plaintiffs lawyers to file a motion for sanctions against Facebook and Gibson Dunn for “stonewalling” during discovery in the four-year-old case.
The judge came in blazing hot, announcing at the very beginning of the hearing that he had developed “quite a strong preliminary view” that the company’s conduct was sanctionable – and that the Gibson Dunn lawyers who signed Facebook’s briefs are just as much to blame as their client. Chhabria said he felt so strongly on that point that if plaintiffs lawyers from Keller Rohrback and Bleichmar Fonti & Auld were not inclined to seek sanctions from Gibson Dunn, “I’m going to want to know if there’s a good reason not to.”
The judge gave Keller Rohrback and Bleichmar Fonti until Feb. 24 to file the sanction motion. He also waived his usual 15-page limit, urging plaintiffs lawyers to “take whatever space you need to articulate the misconduct and to identify the appropriate standard for imposing sanctions.”
Facebook did not respond to my query on the hearing. Gibson Dunn declined to provide a statement. The company told the judge in a Feb. 9 filing that it had not engaged in litigation misconduct. “Facebook submits that the actual record will reflect that at all times it acted in good faith and complied with every order the special master [overseeing discovery] has issued,” it said.
