Judges can convert an opponent’s discovery violation into the victim’s own fault

Evidence

The judge did agree, however, that Schlichtmann had properly asked for the report. Facher and Mary Ryan should have given it to him. But their “default” (as the judge called it) was merely a “lapse of judgment” and not part of any “deliberate conspiracy,” as Schlichtmann had repeatedly charged. In fact, concluded the judge, Schlichtmann himself deserved part of the blame for not getting the report, for insisting on “rushing” headlong to trial, despite Facher’s pleas for more time. And in the last-minute “discovery frenzy” created by Schlichtmann, it was understandable, said the judge, that “this report may have seemed minor” to Facher. — , Harr Jonathan - A Civil Action, 2950

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: A court concedes the misconduct happened and then redistributes blame onto the party who was wronged, by recasting procedural haste as the true cause — a durable pattern in institutional reasoning about process versus substance.
• XREF: Connects to the Milgrom law-merchant and diamond-bourse material on how private and public dispute systems select which breaches get punished.