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NPR ran a story about the judgment against Alex Jones by parents of Sandy Hook victims.

Below is an excerpt (emphasis mine)

Judge Maya Guerra Gamble in Austin, home of Infowars, entered default judgments against Jones, Infowars and other defendants for what she called their "flagrant bad faith and callous disregard" of court orders to turn over documents to the parents' lawyers. The rulings were issued on Monday and released on Thursday.

What is a default judgment? I originally thought it was a default judgment if one party didn't show up to the court date, but the rest of the article makes clear Alex Jones and his lawyers were present.

What does "default judgments" mean in the circumstance? What other kinds of judgments were possible?

sevensevens
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1 Answers1

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A default judgment is a judgment in favor of a party when the opposing party has failed to do something that is required, such as appear before the court. In this instance, defendant's failure was to provide court-ordered documents. See Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37(b) for various failures to to comply with a court order. Failure to appear in court is just one of the failures to comply that can lead to default judgment.

user6726
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