Judge Sanctions Facebook, Lawyers for Bad-Faith Discovery Fight

A federal judge in San Francisco ordered Facebook Inc. to pay $925,078.51 in sanctions for the “egregious conduct” of its attorneys while defending against a class-action consumer privacy lawsuit filed in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

“This case is an example of a wealthy client (Facebook) and its high-powered law firm (Gibson Dunn) using delay, misdirection, and frivolous arguments to make litigation unfairly difficult and expensive for their opponents,” US District Judge Vince Chhabria said in the opening of his 36-page order, issued Thursday.

About 300,000 Facebook users downloaded an application called MyDigitalLife that was marketed as a tool used by psychologists to help their clients better understand their personalties. In March 2018, after media outlets disclosed that Cambridge Analytica had accessed the app to obtain sensitive personal information, plaintiffs represented by the Keller Rohrback law firm filed one of several class-action lawsuits against Facebook. SCL Group, Global Science Research and Cambridge Analytica are also named as defendants.

In the meantime, the Federal Trade Commission investigated and eventually fined Facebook $5 billion. Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg apologized for the company’s conduct.

The civil cases were consolidated and assigned to the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation. Last December, Facebook’s parent company, Meta Platforms, agreed to settle the case for $725 million. That put an end to a contentious discovery battle that produced 1.9 million documents and included 34 depositions, according to pleadings filed with the court.

Chhabria’s order says Facebook fought discovery every step of the way, asserting that the requested documents were protected by attorney-client privilege. After a magistrate judge ruled that the documents must be disclosed, Facebook’s attorneys continued to seek delays.

In February 2022, the court invited the plaintiffs to file a motion seeking sanctions against Facebook and the Gibson Dunn law firm for their unreasonable “bad-faith” behavior. The plaintiffs obliged.

The motion for sanctions was carved out of the settlement agreement. The plaintiff’s asked for $2,037.540.28 in fees and costs, but Chhabria shaved about half of the request off of the sanctions he awarded “out of an abundance of caution.”

“While the amount is almost certainly under-compensatory, there is no chance that it’s over- compensatory,” his order says. “Given the limits on the authority of courts to impose sanctions, it is better to err on the side of caution.”

Chhabria said he hopes the sanctions order will create an incentive for Facebook and Gibson Dunn to behave more honorably in the future.

“To be sure, this amount is loose change for a company like Facebook, and even for a law firm like Gibson Dunn,” the order states. “But it’s important for courts to help protect litigants from suffering financial harm as a result of their opponents’ litigation misconduct.”