GMBH v. Aroney (In re Aroney)

By the time a court holds a hearing to consider a motion for default judgment under Rule 37(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure,1 a litigant who has failed to produce documents or answer interrogatories after being ordered to do so should have a plausible explanation for the failure. The court held such a hearing in this case on June 8, 2018, in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and gave defendant Michael J. Aroney an opportunity to offer an excuse for the acknowledged default.

At the conclusion of the hearing, after admitting two multi-document exhibits that plaintiff Garmin Wu¨rzburg GmbH…