Klipsch Group, Inc., Plaintiff-Appellee-Cross-AppellantABC, Plaintiffv.ePRO E-Commerce Limited, dba DealExtreme, dba DealExtreme.com, dba DX, dba DX.com, Defendant-Appellant-Cross-Appellee,DEF; Big Box Store Limited, dba Bigboxstore.com, dba Bigboxsave.com; Zhongren Cao, dba United Pacific Connections Company, dba Atechport.com, dba WirelessSpyCamera.biz; Dandan Wu, dba Pandawill.com; D201.com, aka PhoneII.com, aka SinoPro.com; Shang Tao, dba Pingu International Limited, dba Airaccent.com; Shiming Zhang, dba Best Discount Store; Kingspec SSD, dba EEEPCSSD.com; EZU Energy Limited, dba Beebond Co., dba Beebond.com, dba James Collen, DBA Beebond.co.UK; Mag Simon, dba Bulkordering.com; McBub.com, aka Sinadeal.com; Li Jin, dba Kan72D7GB; Alex Chaow, dba Advanced Plus Int’l Share Ltd., dba Superluckymart.com; Yaoyao Mai, dba Shenzhen Taobaodao Technology Co., Ltd.; Eachgame International (HK) Stock Co., Ltd., dba Eachgame.com; Technoplus International Co., Limited, dba Sertec, dba SZSertec.com, dba Dealingsmart.com; YueDajie888999; Escalongtb, aka Guderianygm; GH6G8YUH6; Zhaohua Luo, aka Xu Yong Luo, dba wholesalewill.com; XYZ Companies, 1-10; John Does 1-10; Jane Does 1-10, Defendants*Before: Jacobs and Lynch, C.JJ, and Crotty, D.J.**
*1 In the course of defending against claims that it sold counterfeit products, defendant-appellant ePRO E-Commerce Limited (“ePRO”) engaged in persistent discovery misconduct. ePRO brings this interlocutory appeal challenging the resulting imposition of discovery sanctions, including, inter alia, an order that it pay the costs incurred by its opponent, plaintiff-appellee Klipsch Group, Inc., as a result of ePRO’s misconduct, and a restraint on $5 million of ePRO’s assets. ePRO raises various challenges to the district court’s evidentiary rulings and factual findings. It also contends that the resulting sanctions are impermissibly punitive, primarily because they are disproportionate to the likely value of the case. Klipsch, on cross-appeal, argues that the district court erred by failing to infer that ePRO destroyed relevant sales data from the fact that it failed to retain backup copies of its live sales database. We find no error in the district court’s factual findings, and we conclude that the monetary sanctions it awarded properly compensated Klipsch for the corrective discovery efforts it undertook with court permission in response to
