You can read thousands of decisions and never see one like this.

Trust me, I know.

In Delfgauw v. Barton 2025 WL 814484 (W.D. Wash. March 13, 2025) the Court opens its ruling with the following words:

[T]his order is about the incompetence and misconduct of the parties that have prevented resolution of this matter for nearly four years. To put it bluntly, this case has gone off the rails in terms of how civil litigation is supposed to proceed in federal court. 

My goodness.

Just a couple of pieces are worth noting here.

First, the parties submitted a stipulation admitting the defendant had intentionally destroyed evidence. Crazy right?

Except the parties disagree about whether the stipulation should have been filed or not. Barton says it should have been. Defendant disagrees and says the version striking that line was the only one they agreed should have been filed.

But the Court was not impressed and stated: “The Court will not allow Defendants to simply disregard their own unambiguous stipulation by arguing they should be relieved of the consequences of their stipulation because they failed to diligently review it.”

The Court went on to question the capabilities of the defense counsel: Regardless of how it occurred, the Court is incredulous how any member of the bar could sign and submit a stipulation that their client purposefully destroyed evidence to deprive an adversary of it, absent actual knowledge that such an extraordinary event had occurred. 

Indeed.

As a result the Court ordered defendant and his counsel to show cause why they should not be additionally sanctioned.

Meanwhile the defendant also produced call recordings more than two years after the close of discovery despite holding onto the records the entire time.

In the recordings, however, Barton is caught claiming he is named Ivette Martinez, a fact the Court finds disturbing and “circumstantial” evidence Barton may have set up the lawsuit. As a result the court ordered additional discovery as to the issues of the recordings.

So…yeah.

Make sure you have GOOD TCPA defense counsel folks. That’s the take away.