Frivolous Defense Leads to Attorney Sanctions

I've been thinking a lot about frivolous defenses lately and I'll most likely post more on the subject later but I just wanted to share this case real quick, Ford Motor Company v. Benitez. It's Supreme Court of Virginia opinion from 2007 that upheld monetary sanctions against an attorney who submitted grounds for defense that were not based in fact and the attorney knew it.

The attorney claimed that he was only stating defenses that he thought might be used should the facts arise. Problem is that he was the same attorney who was on the case before when it was non-suited after the completion of discovery. Meaning: he already had all the facts of the case but still went ahead and tried to include several affirmative defenses. This was an products liability case dealing with a faulty airbag. A few of the defenses deemed to be "completely groundless" were those of contributory negligence, assumption of the risk, negligence of third parties, failure to state a cause of action, lack of notice of warranty claims, and failure to mitigate damages. At the hearing to strike those defenses, the sanctioned attorney admitted that "In those defenses there were not sufficient facts."

Lately, I seem to be running into a lot of these defenses in which there are not sufficient facts. More later, stay tuned.