By: Derek Hawkins//December 26, 2018//
7th Circuit Court of Appeals
Case Name: Seventh Avenue, Inc. v. Shaf International, Inc.
Case No.: 18-1829
Officials: BAUER, EASTERBROOK, and SCUDDER, Circuit Judges.
Focus: Court Error – Abuse of Discretion
We review a district court’s decision to hold a corporation in contempt of a consent judgment when its outside counsel failed to respond to a motion alleging a violation of the judgment and to appear at a hearing on the motion. All of this was unfortunate and avoidable—the product of a communication breakdown between the company’s local counsel and national counsel and a lack of attention to email notifications from the district court of the contempt motion, briefing schedule, and hearing date. We cannot say the district court abused its discretion in entering the contempt order and requiring the company to pay its adversary’s fees and costs.
Affirmed