Litigation

Nevada Supreme Court upholds 'civil death penalty'

By Carter Wood

The Nevada Supreme Court has upheld an earlier ruling in Bahena v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., a case in which a Clark County district judge had imposed the ultimate sanction against the company for supposed discovery violations -- prohibiting Goodyear from defending itself. The state Supreme Court's ruling reaffirms this "civil death penalty."

From The Las Vegas Sun/McClatchy:

The Nevada Supreme Court has refused to rehear its decision to uphold a $32.2 million judgment in Clark County against Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. in a single-car accident that killed three people and injured seven others.

The court, in a 6-1 decision written by Justice Mark Gibbons, said it did not overlook any material facts or misapply the law. But it took the court 10 pages to clarify what it meant in its first decision last July in upholding the rulings of District Court Judge Sally Loehrer.

Justice Kristina Pickering dissented and said she would have granted a rehearing.

She said the default judgment in the case rested on the District Court "choosing to believe one side's lawyers over another's with no evidentiary hearing, no cross-examination and a genuine dispute over willfulness, fault, and prejudice."

The court's ruling is here.

We covered the Clark County case and the civil death penalty in an Aug. 4, 2010, Point of Law post, "Civil 'death penalty' leaves no defense."

Full post as published by Point of Law on January 01, 2011 (boomark / email).