Supreme Court of Alabama
Ex parte Hankook Tire America Corporation and Hankook Tire & Technology Co., Ltd., f/k/a Hankook Tire Manufacturing…
December 22, 2023
Summary
The court granted Hankook's consolidated petitions for writs of mandamus and directed the trial court to vacate both its discovery-sanctions order and its $66,550 attorney-fee award. It held that a corporate representative who appeared and testified during a deposition, even if some answers were evasive, incomplete, or impeded by counsel, did not fail to appear under Rule 37(d); the plaintiffs therefore needed to pursue the Rule 37(a) motion-to-compel process before Rule 37(b) sanctions could be imposed.