Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-12-07111/USCOURTS-caDC-12-07111-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Seid Hassan Daioleslam
Appellee
National Iranian American Council
Appellant
Trita Parsi
Appellant

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued October 15, 2014 Decided February 10, 2015

No. 12-7111

TRITA PARSI AND NATIONAL IRANIAN AMERICAN COUNCIL,

APPELLANTS

v.

SEID HASSAN DAIOLESLAM,

APPELLEE

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:08-cv-00705)

David A. Schlesinger argued the cause for appellants. 

With him on the briefs was A.P. Pishevar.

HL Rogers argued the cause for appellee. With him on 

the brief were Peter G. Jensen and Timothy E. Kapshandy.

Before: ROGERS and WILKINS, Circuit Judges, and 

RANDOLPH, Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge WILKINS.

WILKINS, Circuit Judge: Following an acrimonious, 

three-year discovery process, the District Court awarded 

$183,480.09 in monetary sanctions to Appellee Seid Hassan 

USCA Case #12-7111 Document #1536782 Filed: 02/10/2015 Page 1 of 32
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Daioleslam1 for attorney’s fees and expenses he accrued in 

defending a defamation action brought by Appellants the 

National Iranian American Council and Trita Parsi.

Throughout discovery, the Appellants engaged in a disturbing 

pattern of delay and intransigence. Seemingly at every turn, 

NIAC and Parsi deferred producing relevant documents, 

withheld them, or denied their existence altogether. Many of 

these documents went to the heart of Daioleslam’s defense. 

The Appellants’ failure to produce documents in a timely 

manner forced Daioleslam—whom they had haled into 

court—to waste resources and time deposing multiple 

witnesses and subpoenaing third parties for emails the 

Appellants should have turned over. Even worse, the

Appellants also misrepresented to the District Court that they 

did not possess key documents Daioleslam sought. Most 

troublingly, they flouted multiple court orders.

Although we discuss these penalties individually below, 

all implicate an enduring issue: the power of a district court 

to sanction those who disobey its instructions and interfere 

with its proceedings. We have previously recognized a trial 

judge’s authority to punish and deter abuses of the discovery 

process, and we do so again today. A court without the 

authority to sanction conduct that so plainly abuses the 

judicial process cannot function. We affirm the bulk of the 

District Court’s sanctions as the wages of Appellants’ 

dilatory, dishonest, and intransigent conduct, though in a 

couple of minor respects, we reverse and remand for 

reconsideration under the proper standard.

 1 Daioleslam’s filings below and his brief before this Court indicate 

that his given name is “Seid Hassan Daioleslam” or “Hassan 

Daioleslam,” not “Daioleslam Seid Hassan,” as the complaint 

initially alleged. J.A. 66 n.1; Appellee’s Br. at 1.

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I.

This appeal is brought by plaintiffs below, the National 

Iranian American Council (“NIAC”), a Washington-based 

nonprofit “dedicated to promoting Iranian American 

involvement in American civic life,” and its president and cofounder Trita Parsi, an expert in United States-Iran relations 

who has published extensively on the subject. J.A. 20-21, 73, 

77-78, 102. Daioleslam, the defendant below, is a resident of 

Arizona who publishes a website called Iranianlobby.com. 

J.A. 20-21.

In April 2008, the Appellants filed a complaint alleging 

Daioleslam defamed them in a series of articles and blog posts 

claiming that they had secretly lobbied on behalf of the 

Iranian regime in the United States. See J.A. 19-28.

2

 The 

Appellants alleged that Daioleslam’s conduct had damaged 

their reputations and harmed public support for NIAC. J.A. 

25, 27. In February 2009, the District Court denied 

Daioleslam’s motion to dismiss, but concluded that NIAC and 

Parsi were limited public figures and would be required to 

prove Daioleslam acted with actual malice, which the 

Appellants could demonstrate through evidence of what 

Daioleslam knew at the time he authored the statements about 

them. Parsi v. Daioleslam, 595 F. Supp. 2d 99, 104-08 

 2 Daioleslam alleged that NIAC and Parsi were “key players in the 

lobby enterprise of Tehran’s ayatollahs in the United States,” that 

the organization had “strong connections to the inner circles of 

power in Tehran” and “the specific role of lobbying the US 

Congress by utilizing unwary ordinary Iranian Americans 

concerned about their inborn land,” that the Appellants were 

“effective nodes of Tehran’s efforts to manipulate US policy 

toward self-serving ends,” and that NIAC was “an active and 

disguised Washington-based lobbying enterprise for the Iranian 

theocratic regime.” J.A. 21-23, 26.

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(D.D.C. 2009). The court also held that Daioleslam had 

offered insufficient evidence to show his assertions were 

substantially true, which would constitute a complete defense 

to the Appellants’ defamation claim. Id. at 108-09. It 

therefore determined that additional discovery was required 

“to develop [these] aspects of [the case].” Id. at 103. 

Shortly thereafter, Daioleslam served NIAC with his first 

request for production, seeking various documents, including 

those “relating to United States political officials” and 

“referring to NIAC’s activities as lobbying, exercising 

political influence, taking positions on United States policies, 

or persuading United States political officials.” J.A. 935-36. 

In a second request for production, served in March 2009, 

Daioleslam sought all documents “relating to NIAC 

membership, including all communications with . . . 

members, and membership and email lists,” and “[a]ll 

calendars, diaries, or other documents relating to the timekeeping records of NIAC and its employees.” J.A. 999-1000. 

Both requests defined “document” to include “agendas, 

minutes or notes of conferences [and] meetings, . . . calendars, 

diaries, and appointment books . . . [and] electronic mail.” 

J.A. 931, 996. 

During discovery, the parties traded recriminations over 

NIAC’s apparent failure to produce documents responsive to 

several of Daioleslam’s requests for production. Between 

July 2010 and August 2011, the District Court issued three 

orders compelling NIAC to produce certain documents and 

parts of its computer network. In September 2011, 

Daioleslam moved for sanctions against the Appellants and 

for summary judgment. The court subsequently entered 

summary judgment in Daioleslam’s favor. Parsi v. 

Daioleslam, 890 F. Supp. 2d 77 (D.D.C. 2012). The 

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Appellants do not appeal the disposal of the merits of their 

case on summary judgment. 

On the same day it granted summary judgment on the 

merits, the District Court imposed sanctions against the 

Appellants for their discovery abuses. See Parsi v. 

Daioleslam, 286 F.R.D. 73 (D.D.C. 2012) (the “Sanctions 

Order”). On April 9, 2013, the court entered a final judgment 

in favor of Daioleslam, plus judgment in the amount of 

$183,480.09 for the sanctions, with post-judgment interest 

running from the date of the Sanctions Order, which had been 

entered September 13, 2012. J.A. 926; see also Parsi v. 

Daioleslam, 937 F. Supp. 2d 44 (D.D.C. 2013) (the “Final 

Order”). In awarding sanctions, the District Court invoked

both Rule 37 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and its 

inherent authority. Parsi, 286 F.R.D. at 77. It noted that Rule 

37(a) embraces monetary sanctions for the prevailing party on 

a motion to compel, and cited to Rule 37(b), which penalizes 

disobedience of a court order. Id. (citing FED. R. CIV. P.

37(a), (b)(2)(A)). The court concluded that, under our 

precedent, it could impose “‘issue-related’ sanctions” under 

its inherent authority based on a finding that a party engaged 

in misconduct by a preponderance of the evidence, rather than

the higher clear and convincing evidence standard. Id.

(quoting Shepherd v. Am. Broadcasting Cos., Inc., 62 F.3d 

1469, 1478 (D.C. Cir. 1995)). Before reviewing the legal 

merit of the Appellants’ arguments, we summarize the 

conduct for which the District Court imposed sanctions.

A.

Although it used Microsoft Outlook as its email client, 

NIAC failed for ten months to produce Outlook calendar 

records for any of its employees in response to Daioleslam’s 

production requests. In early December 2009, Daioleslam

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deposed NIAC’s former legislative policy director Emily 

Blout, who testified that she had not understood his discovery 

requests to include calendar entries from Outlook. J.A. 957. 

The next day, Daioleslam requested that NIAC review its 

calendars and produce entries responsive to his requests. J.A. 

1050. Only at the end of that month did NIAC produce about 

400 Outlook calendar entries for three of its employees. 

Although it claimed to have put a litigation hold in place, 

NIAC produced no calendar entries from before 2009. Of the 

entries it produced, 78 had been altered shortly before 

production, including two-thirds of those in Parsi’s calendar.

3

 

In early March 2010, Daioleslam asked the District Court 

to order NIAC to produce its Outlook calendar records for a 

forensic imaging to determine when they were modified, 

arguing that the multiple alterations shortly before production 

raised questions about the sufficiency of NIAC’s compliance 

with its discovery obligations. J.A. 133-36. NIAC responded 

that it had not modified the Outlook entries, and promised the 

court that it would produce “complete, unaltered” calendar 

entries for its employees. Parsi, 286 F.R.D. at 79; see J.A. 

142. The court therefore did not order the requested forensic 

imaging. Parsi, 286 F.R.D. at 79. Yet when NIAC made a

 3 The list of produced calendar entries Daioleslam attached as an 

exhibit to his motion to compel lists only 345 documents, 81 of 

them modified over the weekend between Christmas and December 

27, 2009. See J.A. 135, 963-985. Daioleslam later represented that 

NIAC had produced 412 documents, of which 78 were altered 

during that period, and the District Court appears to have accepted 

this figure but mistakenly transcribed the number of altered 

documents as “87.” J.A. 188; see Parsi, 286 F.R.D. at 79. NIAC 

never disputed the totals that Daioleslam alleged, and even if the 

earlier numbers were accurate, they still demonstrate that a large 

proportion of the documents were modified shortly before 

production.

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second production, in April 2010, it consisted solely of 

Outlook calendar entries copied onto a spreadsheet and did 

not include a field stating when the entries had last been 

modified. J.A. 190.

Seeking resolution of the issue, the District Court issued 

an order on July 1, 2010 (the “July 2010 Order”) directing 

NIAC to “submit the server on which its Outlook calendars 

are kept to PricewaterhouseCoopers [“PwC”] for forensic 

imaging” by July 16. J.A. 168. It ordered PwC to produce 

the Outlook calendar entries “complete and unedited to the 

extent possible” to Daioleslam, J.A. 168, and to prepare a 

report describing any calendar entries found on the forensic 

image and omitted from NIAC’s prior productions, as well as

details of any edits or deletions to the entries. J.A. 169.4

 

Instead of producing a server, however, NIAC produced

eight desktop computers and a laptop and told the District 

Court, for the first time, that it did not have a server. J.A. 

236, 239.

5

 PwC’s forensic analysis subsequently revealed the 

existence of four additional computers in NIAC’s network 

that it had not produced. J.A. 261-62. The Appellants

claimed that these computers were used only by interns. J.A. 

271-72. Daioleslam then subpoenaed NIAC’s “computer 

consultant,” Progressive Office, which produced an inventory 

 4 The court ordered Daioleslam to pay for PwC’s analysis, but 

stated that he could file a motion to recover his expenses if the 

report showed that “discoverable calendar entries were omitted 

from previous productions, or that inappropriate edits were made to 

such entries.” J.A. 169.

5 In fact, David Elliott, NIAC’s employee responsible for ediscovery, had testified in an October 2009 deposition that the 

organization collected electronic documents for discovery on an 

“electronic server.” JA. 435-36, 1227-28. 

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it had created during its late 2009 audit of NIAC’s network.

6

 

See J.A. 297, 1113-39. The inventory showed that one of the 

computers NIAC had withheld as an “intern computer” was 

actually used by Blout, whose Outlook calendar entries NIAC 

had produced. J.A. 297, 369. Compare J.A. 1059 (inventory 

listing “Intern Computer”), with J.A. 1125-26 (same computer 

listed as “Computer Name: niac-emily”).

7 Another one of the 

“intern” computers was actually used by NIAC’s co-founder 

and former outreach director, Babak Talebi. Compare J.A. 

1245 (listing “Intern Computer”) with J.A. 1248 (NIAC letter 

acknowledging identical serial number corresponded to 

Talebi’s computer).

Progressive Office’s network inventory also raised 

questions about Parsi’s honesty regarding his laptop and 

desktop computers. The desktop computer that NIAC 

produced that Parsi represented to the District Court he had 

used from April 2009 until November 2010 was not 

connected to NIAC’s network at all when Progressive Office 

 6 NIAC denied that Progressive Office had performed work on its 

network apart from addressing a printing malfunction, and claimed 

it had produced an inaccurate list of NIAC’s computer serial 

numbers because it lacked sufficient knowledge of the network. 

J.A. 311-12. However, Progressive Office CEO Stuart Kushner 

submitted an affidavit and supplied email traffic between 

Progressive Office and NIAC revealing that Progressive Office did 

extensive work for NIAC, including a “network audit and survey,” 

between November 2009 and April 2010. J.A. 1061. Kushner also 

stated that he had installed NIAC’s “new, larger server” and 

migrated data from its “old, existing server.” Id. (emphasis added); 

see J.A. 1093-94, 1109. 

7 Later, NIAC dismissed the concern that Blout may have used one 

of the computers it failed to produce, arguing that as a small 

organization, NIAC’s employees often shared computers, but the 

District Court rejoined that any computer used by Blout, NIAC’s 

legislative director, was relevant to the imaging. See J.A. 373.

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worked on NIAC’s network between November 2009 and 

April 2010. Parsi, 286 F.R.D. at 85-86; J.A. 261-63, 1061. 

PwC’s analysis also showed that Parsi had stopped using 

Outlook in June 2010 and stopped using the desktop

altogether in August of that year. Parsi, 286 F.R.D. at 86. 

Parsi also represented that his laptop computer had been 

stolen in Norway in early 2010, and he had not backed up the 

hard drive beforehand, despite being subject to a litigation 

hold. J.A. 239-40, 436. 

In a March 29, 2011 order (the “March 2011 Order”), the 

District Court again ordered NIAC and Parsi to produce the 

“server (or ‘shared drive’)” that contained “NIAC’s Outlook 

calendar entries that this Court ordered be produced in July 

2010” for forensic imaging. J.A. 330. For the avoidance of 

doubt, the court stated that if NIAC did not produce a server 

or “shared drive” by that date, it must instead turn over the 

four computers it had previously failed to produce and the 

desktop computer Parsi used in 2008. Id. The court

instructed PwC to forensically image Outlook calendar entries 

on whatever machines NIAC produced, should Daioleslam 

choose to proceed with another imaging.

In April 2011, NIAC produced a new server containing

four hard drives that it had installed in December 2009, but

refused to produce the original server in use at the time it had 

uploaded discovery materials. J.A. 437. Daioleslam 

expressed his concern that NIAC might not have migrated all 

the data from its old server to the new one. J.A. 415. He

again moved to compel NIAC to produce its old server and 

Talebi’s previously withheld computer, J.A. 435-38, 585-88,

and NIAC reacted angrily to what it termed a “third bite at the 

imaging apple.” J.A. 499. 

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At an August 30, 2011 hearing, the District Court 

expressed its frustration with the Appellants’ continued 

defiance of its orders. J.A. 557-58. It then issued a third

order (the “August 2011 Order”) requiring that the Appellants

produce “all of the servers/shared-drives on which NIAC’s 

Outlook calendar entries have been kept from 2007 to the 

present,” including its old server. J.A. 595. PwC was 

instructed, at Daioleslam’s election, to conduct a third 

forensic imaging, limited to Outlook calendar information and 

“user/habit/login information in order to determine the 

identities of the persons who used the computers’ Outlook 

calendar function.” J.A. 596. The court ordered NIAC to pay 

Daioleslam’s expenses associated with bringing his third 

motion to compel, as it was “the third time that plaintiffs have 

been ordered to produce their server[,] a server that plaintiffs 

initially claimed did not exist.” J.A. 596. PwC’s forensic 

imaging of NIAC’s old server revealed hundreds of 

previously unproduced calendar entries. Parsi, 286 F.R.D. at 

78.

In its Sanctions Order, the District Court concluded that 

NIAC had violated its July 2010 and March 2011 Orders. 

Even if it did not possess a “server,” the court pointed out,

NIAC was obligated to produce all the computers on which it 

stored relevant data for the first forensic imaging. Id. at 78-

79. Since its disobedience to the court’s July 2010 Order had 

necessitated two additional rounds of imaging, NIAC must 

pay for those later rounds. Id. The court also ordered NIAC 

to pay Daioleslam’s reasonable expenses in bringing that part 

of his motion for sanctions.

The court did not find that NIAC had inappropriately 

altered Outlook calendar entries. Id. at 79-83. However, it 

ordered NIAC to pay half the cost of re-deposing Blout, since 

at the time Daioleslam first deposed her in December 2009, 

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NIAC had produced none of her calendar entries, which were 

key to questioning her about meetings with legislative and 

executive officials. Id. at 85.

With respect to Parsi’s computers, the District Court 

awarded sanctions for the part of Daioleslam’s sanctions 

motion related to Parsi’s misrepresentation in an interrogatory 

response about his use of a desktop computer on NIAC’s 

network. Id. at 86-87. The court noted, however, that the 

Appellants had not discussed the issue at all in their briefing, 

and there was a risk the court might be “awarding sanctions 

based on conduct for which there is an innocent explanation.” 

Id. at 86.8

 8 Another episode resulted in sanctions that NIAC and Parsi do not 

appeal. NIAC produced virtually no documents from Talebi’s 

NIAC email address in response to Daioleslam’s production 

requests prior to late December 2009, even though Talebi had been 

involved with the organization since 2002; the Appellants claimed 

the email records “no longer exist[ed].” J.A. 144. After the court 

ordered NIAC to search its servers, NIAC located about 8,000 of 

his emails, but produced only 89 as relevant, and withheld the rest 

as not relevant. J.A. 151-52. Daioleslam argued it was difficult to 

believe that such a small proportion of NIAC’s former outreach 

director’s emails were relevant, given that his production request 

called for all emails to NIAC members. The District Court ordered 

NIAC to turn over Talebi’s emails “consistent with its discovery 

obligations.” J.A. 212. NIAC then produced about 2,500 additional 

Talebi emails, withholding the remaining 5,500 as nonresponsive. 

J.A. 334. 

Given the still-low rate of emails NIAC produced, in March 

2011 the District Court agreed to review the emails itself in camera. 

J.A. 331-32. After review, the court held in an April 5, 2011 order 

that NIAC had “totally failed” to assess the Talebi emails for 

responsiveness. J.A. 333-35. The court observed that many were 

plainly responsive to Daioleslam’s requests for lobbying-related 

documents, including an email from Talebi explaining that NIAC 

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B.

References to “SF” in NIAC’s belated April 2010

production of some of its Outlook calendar entries tipped off 

Daioleslam that it had also withheld meeting notes and 

membership lists it kept in a program called Salesforce.

9 See

Exhibit HH to Motion for Sanctions at 2, Parsi v. Daioleslam,

No. 1:08-cv-00705 (D.D.C. Sept. 16, 2011), ECF No. 143

(listing a September 2008 Outlook meeting invitation from 

Parsi to Blout and NIAC assistant legislative director Patrick 

Disney entitled “How to freakin [sic] use SF,” and the body of 

which stated “Need to go over how you all should enter in 

your meeting notes”). When Daioleslam drew the District 

Court’s attention to the possibility that NIAC had withheld its

system for tracking meetings with legislators, NIAC 

responded that it “ha[d] not employed any such software or 

 

“can ‘advocate’ but not ‘lobby’” and an explanation of NIAC’s 

“seven ingredients to influence lawmakers.” J.A. 334. When 

Daioleslam finally received the remainder of Talebi’s emails, he 

noted they included Congress-related communications that he could 

have used in his depositions of NIAC’s employees. J.A. 614-17.

The court ordered NIAC to pay Daioleslam’s reasonable 

expenses in moving to compel production of the emails, finding 

NIAC was not “substantially justified” in opposing the motion, 

since it failed to conduct even a cursory relevance review of the 

emails it withheld. Parsi, 286 F.R.D. at 83. 

9 NIAC produced member lists from December 2007 and April 

2008 in May 2009, which Daioleslam considered insufficient to 

comply with his request for “communications with potential, 

former, or current members” as of his March 2009 discovery 

request. J.A. 999. Daioleslam argued NIAC’s more recent 

membership data was relevant in view of its allegation that his 

articles “interfered [sic] or damaged the public support of NIAC by 

affecting NIAC’s public estimation and reputation” and its damages 

expert’s plan to testify that the articles led to a drop in current 

membership numbers. J.A. 27, 442-43. 

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system and is therefore unable to comment about this 

unfounded claim.” J.A. 207.

By September 2010, Daioleslam realized that “SF” 

probably referred to a software program called “Salesforce,” 

and again asked NIAC to produce its membership data; this 

time, NIAC told the District Court that it had only 

experimented briefly with Salesforce. J.A. 237-38, 242-43. 

However, Parsi conceded in his first deposition two months 

later that NIAC had used Salesforce “to keep track on 

members and donations” since before 2006 and that, “for a 

few years, we used it as the database in which we kept our 

membership information.” Exhibit MM to Motion for 

Sanctions at 5, Parsi, ECF No. 143. He testified that NIAC 

migrated its membership database to a program called Convio 

in early 2010. See id. at 6-7. 

Yet by December 2010, NIAC had still not produced any 

Salesforce or Convio data. J.A. 258-61. NIAC by that time

acknowledged that it had also used the program to track

meeting notes, which it promised to turn over, but refused to 

produce membership information, which it referred to as both

“proprietary” and “duplicative.” J.A. 272-75. On December 

22, 2010, the District Court ordered the parties to preserve 

electronically stored information “possessed by the parties or 

under their control since the commencement of the litigation 

until final resolution.” J.A. 251.

NIAC finally produced its Salesforce meeting notes in 

February 2011, and a month later produced some Microsoft 

Excel spreadsheets showing its Salesforce “membership 

information”; the Excel files’ metadata showed they were 

nearly a year old and many of the fields were coded and 

unreadable. J.A. 445, 624. The District Court’s March 2011 

Order required NIAC to produce its entire current Convio 

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membership list and codes for the Salesforce data. J.A. 331. 

The court also permitted Daioleslam to re-depose Parsi.

Much of Parsi’s second deposition that May focused on his 

conflicting statements about NIAC’s membership numbers 

and unwillingness to turn over NIAC’s mailing list, which he 

testified ran to over 43,000 members. Exhibit A to Motion to 

Compel Production of Membership Lists at 5, Parsi, No. 

1:08-cv-00705 (D.D.C. July 1, 2011), ECF No. 113. Again, 

NIAC failed to comply meaningfully with the court’s order, 

producing only a list of 9,000 Convio “transactions”—mostly 

donations—from which a complete list of members was 

impossible to divine. J.A. 446-47. 

In July 2011, Daioleslam once more moved to compel 

NIAC to produce its complete list of active paid and former 

members. J.A. 451. In its August 2011 Order, the District 

Court again ordered NIAC to produce its complete Convio list 

of both active and expired members, “current as of the date 

that it is produced,” and ordered the Appellants to pay 

Daioleslam’s costs in bringing that part of his motion to 

compel, because it was the second time he had sought the 

documents. J.A. 596-97. At long last, in September 2011—

two-and-a-half years after Daioleslam’s request for 

production of documents related to NIAC’s membership—

NIAC produced all its member lists. J.A. 624.

Given that NIAC withheld its complete membership data 

until months after Parsi’s second deposition, Daioleslam

moved for an award of his expenses in deposing Parsi over 

two-and-a-half days in December 2009 and May 2011. J.A. 

639. In its Sanctions Order, the District Court awarded 

Daioleslam half his expenses for the final, partial day of 

Parsi’s deposition only, since he would have had to depose 

Parsi anyway and the court could not determine whether the 

length of the final day’s deposition resulted from NIAC’s 

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belated production or would have taken that long in any 

event. Parsi, 286 F.R.D. at 85. The court awarded 

Daioleslam the expense of bringing that part of the motion.

Id.

C.

Because of Appellants’ failure to produce relevant 

documents in response to his requests for production,

Daioleslam also subpoenaed a series of third parties for 

documents in their custody. These subpoenas turned up

multiple relevant documents NIAC had failed to produce,

including a discussion of legal restrictions on lobbying by 

nonprofits, emails Parsi wrote to a National Security Council

director, emails coordinating a congressional briefing,

communications NIAC exchanged with its expert about NIAC 

events on Capitol Hill and meetings with foreign officials, and 

168 emails NIAC received from Iranian-Americans 

expressing negative views of the organization. J.A. 618-20. 

The Appellants made no attempt to defend their failure to 

produce these documents other than to say Daioleslam had 

found no “smoking gun” among them. J.A. 711. 

The District Court awarded Daioleslam his expenses in 

subpoenaing nearly all of these third parties, calling NIAC’s 

suppression of documents “inexplicable and unexplained” and 

“indefensible.” Parsi, 286 F.R.D. at 84. “Most 

disturbingly,” the court found, the Appellants had 

misrepresented in a hearing that “technical” reasons prevented 

them from producing the critical emails from IranianAmericans, but Appellants were able to gather them for their 

own damages expert. Id. 

Finally, Daioleslam sought sanctions for Parsi’s alteration 

of a document he produced in discovery. The document, a list 

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of frequently asked questions (“FAQ”) compiled by Iranians 

for International Cooperation (“IIC”) (a group with which 

Parsi was affiliated before launching NIAC), originally 

described IIC as a “lobby” group. Id. at 87. One version of 

the FAQ that Parsi produced—the metadata of which showed 

it was last modified in 1999—retained this description. The 

second version he produced replaced the word “lobby” with 

“advocacy,” and had last been modified in April 2009. Id. 

Parsi responded only that he was unaware of the alteration. 

J.A. 715-16. The court indicated it “would not be prepared to 

find by clear and convincing evidence that plaintiffs 

intentionally altered this file,” but was prepared to do so by a 

preponderance of the evidence. Parsi, 286 F.R.D. at 87. 

Accordingly, it awarded as sanction Daioleslam’s expenses in 

preparing the corresponding part of his sanctions motion.

D.

Daioleslam thereafter submitted a final bill of costs 

totaling $280,786.36 for the court-ordered expense 

reimbursements. J.A. 898-901. On April 8, 2013, the court 

issued an opinion awarding him $183,480.09, after rejecting 

some of his attorneys’ and their non-legal employees’ vague 

billing descriptions, J.A. 908-12, 917-23, and subtracting 

certain forensic imaging charges not attributable to NIAC’s 

dilatory tactics. J.A. 912-17. The court also awarded costs to 

Daioleslam as the prevailing party under Rule 54(d). J.A. 

923-24. In its Final Order issued April 9, 2013, the court 

entered post-judgment interest on the full award to run from 

September 13, 2012, the date it had ordered sanctions. J.A. 

926. NIAC and Parsi timely filed this appeal.

NIAC and Parsi appeal several of the District Court’s 

sanctions: (i) Daioleslam’s expenses in preparing his third 

motion to compel forensic imaging; (ii) the cost of the second 

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17

and third forensic imagings; (iii) the cost of re-deposing Parsi 

and Blout; (iv) the expense of subpoenaing third parties; (v) 

the cost of preparing the parts of Daioleslam’s sanctions 

motion related to Parsi’s alteration of the IIC document and 

Parsi’s purportedly false interrogatory responses; and (vi) the 

court’s award of sanctions to run from the date of the District 

Court’s Sanctions Order rather than final judgment.

II.

District courts have “considerable discretion” in 

managing discovery, United States v. Philip Morris Inc., 347 

F.3d 951, 955 (D.C. Cir. 2003), and possess broad discretion 

to impose sanctions for discovery violations under Rule 37. 

Bonds v. District of Columbia, 93 F.3d 801, 807 (D.C. Cir. 

1996) (citing Nat’l Hockey League v. Metro. Hockey Club, 

Inc., 427 U.S. 639, 642-43 (1976) (per curiam)). 

Consequently, we review discovery-related orders for abuse 

of discretion, a “narrowly circumscribed” scope of review. 

Lee v. Dep’t of Justice, 413 F.3d 53, 59 (D.C. Cir. 2005); see 

also Bonds, 93 F.3d at 807 (reviewing court may reverse 

discovery sanctions only if “clearly unreasonable, arbitrary, or 

fanciful”) (quoting Hull v. Eaton Corp., 825 F.2d 448, 452 

(D.C. Cir. 1987) (per curiam)).

We review for clear error the District Court’s finding that

Appellants acted in bad faith sufficient to justify an award of 

attorney’s fees under the court’s inherent power. Ass’n of Am. 

Physicians and Surgeons, Inc. v. Clinton, 187 F.3d 655, 660 

(D.C. Cir. 1999); Am. Hosp. Ass’n v. Sullivan, 938 F.2d 216, 

222 (D.C. Cir. 1991). This is a “highly deferential” standard. 

Shepherd, 62 F.3d at 1475-76.

Ordinarily, a court of appeals can affirm a district court 

judgment on any basis supported by the record, even if 

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18

different from the grounds the district court cited. Queen v. 

Schultz, 747 F.3d 879, 884 (D.C. Cir. 2014). However, in 

Manion v. American Airlines, we declined to affirm sanctions 

on any basis other than that articulated by the district court. 

395 F.3d 428, 431-32 (D.C. Cir. 2004).10 Here, the District 

Court expressly anchored its sanctions in two sources of 

judicial power—Rule 37 and the inherent power of courts—

and we will only affirm if it correctly exercised these powers, 

notwithstanding Daioleslam’s invitation to consider other 

bases of authority. See Appellee’s Br. at 52-54.

As relevant here, two subdivisions of Rule 37 of the 

Federal Rules of Civil Procedure permit a district court to 

award monetary sanctions for a party’s reasonable expenses 

caused by its opponent’s resistance to discovery. We 

conclude the District Court was well within its discretion in 

sanctioning the Appellants under Rule 37. 

A.

First, Appellants contend the District Court abused its 

discretion by awarding Daioleslam’s expenses in bringing 

 10 In Manion, since the district court had explicitly entered 

sanctions under 28 U.S.C. § 1927, this Court refused to consider 

whether it could have done so under its inherent authority, and 

suggested that, since district courts possess extensive discretion 

over sanctions, we could only “invoke an alternative basis to affirm 

[if] . . . it would have been an abuse of discretion for the trial court 

to rule otherwise.” 395 F.3d at 431 (quoting Ashby v. McKenna,

331 F.3d 1148, 1151 (10th Cir. 2003)) (internal quotation marks 

omitted). Daioleslam misreads this exception: the Court can affirm 

sanctions on another basis if it would have been an abuse of 

discretion for the District Court not to order sanctions, not if “it 

would not have been an abuse of discretion to sanction” a party for 

its behavior. See Appellee’s Br. at 54 n.22.

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three motions to compel NIAC to produce its server, asserting 

that their opposition to those motions was “substantially 

justified.” In fact, however, the court only shifted the cost of 

Daioleslam’s third motion to compel. This cost-shifting was 

proper under Rule 37(a)(5)(A). 

Under Rule 37(a), a party can move for an order to 

compel disclosure or discovery after first attempting in good 

faith to confer with its opponent. FED. R. CIV. P. 37(a)(1). 

Upon granting a motion to compel discovery, a court must

order the opposing party to pay the moving party’s 

“reasonable expenses incurred in making the motion, 

including attorney’s fees,” unless the opposing party was 

“substantially justified” in its resistance to discovery, the 

prevailing party did not attempt to obtain discovery in good 

faith before moving to compel, or an expense award would be 

otherwise unjust. FED. R. CIV. P. 37(a)(5)(A).11 If a court 

grants in part and denies in part a motion to compel, it may 

apportion reasonable expenses among the parties accordingly. 

FED. R. CIV. P. 37(a)(5)(C).

A party is “substantially justified” in opposing discovery 

or disobeying an order “if there is a ‘genuine dispute,’ or ‘if 

reasonable people could differ as to the appropriateness of the 

contested action.’” Pierce v. Underwood, 487 U.S. 552, 565 

(1988) (internal citations and brackets omitted); see, e.g.,

Maddow v. Procter & Gamble Co., 107 F.3d 846, 853 (11th 

Cir. 1997) (party was substantially justified in opposing 

motion to compel production where it believed case law 

 11 The Advisory Committee Notes explain that the command that a 

court “must” award expenses “does not significantly narrow the 

discretion of the court,” but is intended to encourage use of this 

“most important available sanction to deter abusive resort to the 

judiciary.” FED. R. CIV. P. 37 advisory committee’s note to 1970 

amendment. 

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supported its position).12 The substantial justification 

requirement serves to prevent sanctions that “‘chill’ legitimate 

efforts at discovery.” Reygo Pac. Corp. v. Johnston Pump 

Co., 680 F.2d 647, 649 (9th Cir. 1982).

Reasonable people cannot differ about whether a party is 

entitled to withhold relevant documents without articulating 

any claim of privilege. NIAC’s calendar entries were relevant 

to proving Daioleslam’s defense, in that they might reveal 

meetings with officials that suggested the truth of his 

allegedly defamatory statements. See FED. R. CIV. P. 26(b)(1) 

(“Parties may obtain discovery regarding any nonprivileged 

matter that is relevant to any party’s claim or defense . . . .”). 

The Appellants argue that the District Court’s ultimate 

conclusion that they had not deleted emails in bad faith 

demonstrates the reasonableness of their position, see

Appellants’ Br. at 60, but this Court cannot ground its review 

in hindsight. Evidence that suggested some entries were 

 12 The 1970 Amendment Advisory Committee Notes to Rule 37 

explain the rationale behind this exemption from mandatory 

sanctions:

On many occasions, to be sure, the dispute over 

discovery between the parties is genuine, though 

ultimately resolved one way or the other by the 

court. In such cases, the losing party is substantially 

justified in carrying the matter to court. But the 

rules should deter the abuse implicit in carrying or 

forcing a discovery dispute to court when no 

genuine dispute exists. And the potential or actual 

imposition of expenses is virtually the sole formal 

sanction in the rules to deter a party from pressing 

to a court hearing frivolous . . . objections to 

discovery.

FED. R. CIV. P. 37 advisory committee’s note to 1970 amendment. 

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modified or deleted before production justified the District 

Court’s order that NIAC submit its server for imaging. 

The Appellants also argue their opposition to producing 

their server was justified by Daioleslam’s “leaks” of NIAC

documents to media outlets. See Appellants’ Br. at 58. If the 

Appellants were concerned Daioleslam would misappropriate 

their calendar data, they could have filed for a protective 

order. See FED. R. CIV. P. 26(c). They acknowledge none 

was in place at the time of their refusal to allow PwC to image 

NIAC’s server. And if they feared that the court’s order 

would “allow Daioleslam to image [NIAC’s] CPUs and 

shared drives,” bearing all their internal records for him to 

see, Appellant’s Br. at 58-59, the appropriate remedy was to

require the third-party that conducted the imaging to employ 

certain safeguards. This is precisely what the District Court 

did; its first order designated PwC to conduct the imaging and 

produce only calendar entries to Daioleslam, specifically 

protecting NIAC from “metadata mining” of its server. J.A. 

169. NIAC’s position was therefore unreasonable at the time 

the court issued its first, July 2010 Order.

We need not even decide, however, whether the 

Appellants were substantially justified in opposing the July 

2010 Order, since the District Court did not shift the cost of 

obtaining that order to the Appellants. In fact, as Daioleslam 

notes, the court did not even shift the cost of obtaining the 

second motion to compel NIAC’s server, contrary to the 

Appellants’ claim. See Appellee’s Br. at 37. Instead, it only 

shifted the cost of the third motion to compel. After the court 

rejected their arguments and ordered discovery of the calendar 

data, the Appellants were not entitled to continue to oppose 

production. The Appellants’ brief proceeds from the 

assumption that Daioleslam’s second and third motions to 

compel each gave them an additional opportunity to contest 

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whether NIAC’s Outlook calendar data was subject to 

imaging. Not so. Once the court resolved the discoverability 

of that data, no genuine dispute remained and NIAC was not 

at liberty to continue to litigate the issue. Whatever the merits 

of NIAC’s opposition to the first motion to compel, its mere 

obstinacy became contumacy when it failed to obey two 

subsequent direct court orders. 

B.

1.

The largest component of the sanctions award consisted 

of Daioleslam’s expenses for the second and third imaging of 

NIAC’s hard drive. Once more, the District Court properly 

exercised its discretion, because the cost of these forensic 

imagings directly resulted from NIAC’s disobedience of the 

court’s initial, July 2010 Order.

Rule 37(b) provides that a district court may issue “just 

orders” entering sanctions against a party that “fails to obey 

an order to provide or permit discovery,” including an order 

granting a motion to compel. FED. R. CIV. P. 37(b)(2)(A). 

Sanctions can include (but are not limited to) directing that 

matters addressed by the order violated be taken as 

established, prohibiting the disobedient party from 

introducing evidence, striking pleadings, staying the action 

pending obedience, dismissing the action, entering default 

judgment, or holding the disobedient party in contempt. FED.

R. CIV. P. 37(b)(2)(A). In addition, “the court must order the 

disobedient party, the attorney advising that party, or both to 

pay the reasonable expenses, including attorney’s fees, caused 

by the failure” to obey a discovery order, unless the party’s 

disobedience was substantially justified or the circumstances 

would otherwise render an expense award unjust. FED. R.

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CIV. P. 37(b)(2)(C).13 As Rule 37(b)’s text suggests, “[a] 

production order is generally needed to trigger” sanctions. 

Shepherd, 62 F.3d at 1474 (alteration in original) (quoting 

Att’y Gen. v. The Irish People, Inc., 684 F.2d 928, 951 n.129 

(D.C. Cir. 1982)).

The cost of the imagings was “caused by [NIAC’s] 

failure” to obey the July 2010 Order by producing all the 

computers on which it stored calendar records. See FED. R.

CIV. P. 37(b)(2)(C). NIAC elevates semantics over substance, 

arguing it could not comply with the command that it produce 

a “server” because it used only a “shared hard drive” to store 

data, not a central exchange server.

14 Appellants’ Br. at 4, 25, 

35, 52-53, 61. The context of the District Court’s July 2010 

Order is key, however. That order required NIAC to “submit 

the server on which its Outlook calendars are kept to . . . 

 13 The 1970 Advisory Committee Notes observe that awarding 

reasonable expenses caused by the failure to obey a discovery order 

“places the burden on the disobedient party to avoid expenses by 

showing that his failure is justified or that special circumstances 

make an award of expenses unjust. Allocating the burden in this 

way . . . is particularly appropriate when a court order is 

disobeyed.” FED. R. CIV. P. 37 advisory committee’s note to 1970 

amendment. 14 Even were we to credit the Appellants’ argument that NIAC

could not comply because it did not have a server, its behavior is 

inconsistent with that assertion. At no point in opposing 

Daioleslam’s first motion to compel or in moving for 

reconsideration of the court’s July 2010 Order did the Appellants 

inform the court that NIAC lacked a server. Instead, they referred 

several times to its “server” or “shared server.” J.A. 143, 173, 182. 

In responding directly to Daioleslam’s proposed order, which 

would have required the Appellants to produce “the server on 

which NIAC’s Outlook calendars are kept,” they objected only to 

the omission of any prohibition on “metadata mining,” not to the 

reference to a server. J.A. 157, 163.

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PricewaterhouseCoopers for forensic imaging” so that PwC 

could obtain “Outlook calendar records, complete and 

unedited to the extent possible,” from NIAC’s network. J.A. 

168 (emphasis added). The court ordered PwC to prepare a 

report describing edits and deletions to the calendar entries, 

including who made the alterations. J.A. 169. Even if it did 

not have a server, then, NIAC knew that the purpose of the 

imaging was to obtain and review its “complete and unedited” 

calendar records. It was obligated to produce any computers 

or shared drives on which that data was stored, including the 

computer its legislative director used and its old shared drive. 

Appellants contend that the fact the District Court had to 

explain in its second, March 2011 Order that, in the absence 

of a server or “shared drive,” NIAC must instead produce the 

computers it had previously withheld, demonstrates that the 

first order was ambiguous. See Appellants’ Br. at 52. On the 

contrary, NIAC’s refusal to comply with the clear import of 

the first order is what necessitated this clarification. Its 

resolute failure to produce all relevant drives until over a year 

after it was first ordered to do so is inexcusable. 

2.

Similarly, Daioleslam’s expenses in redeposing Parsi and 

Blout resulted from the Appellants’ disobedience of the 

District Court’s orders and were a legitimate subject of Rule 

37(b) sanctions. The Appellants, arguing that they violated 

no court order in failing to produce the documents Daioleslam 

needed to conduct these follow-up depositions, ask the Court 

to reverse the sanctions. Appellants’ Br. at 56. We disagree.

Daioleslam’s February 2009 production requests sought 

all documents related to U.S. political officials, including 

meeting notes and calendars. Daioleslam specifically 

requested lobbying time records after he deposed NIAC’s 

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employee responsible for e-discovery in early October 2009, 

noting it was important that he receive them in time to prepare 

for Blout’s deposition on December 8, 2009. J.A. 133. Given 

NIAC’s admission that its employees “used their Microsoft 

Outlook calendars to note meetings of any kind,” including 

“meetings with government officials,” J.A. 206, it surely was 

aware that its response to Daioleslam’s request was materially

incomplete if it omitted any Outlook entries. Similarly, NIAC 

and Parsi were aware of their use of Salesforce to record 

meeting notes. J.A. 622. Yet they produced no Outlook 

entries at all until December 28, 2009, after Daioleslam had 

first deposed Blout, and no Salesforce entries until much later. 

In a March 4, 2010 filing, Daioleslam asked the District 

Court to order Blout’s redeposition, observing that because of 

the Appellants’ withholding of key documents he had not 

been able to question Blout about NIAC’s “lobbying time

records . . . [and] Outlook records.” J.A. 134, 136.

Responding to Daioleslam’s concerns, it issued a minute 

order the next day, ordering that “[Daioleslam] may take an 

additional deposition of Emily Blount [sic], although the 

Court reserves judgment as to which party shall bear any 

expenses. . . . [T]he parties are instructed to discuss further 

the production of Outlook calendars, including those 

predating 2009.” Minute Order, Parsi v. Daioleslam, No. 

1:08-cv-00705 (D.D.C. Mar. 5, 2010). Thus, the court’s order 

that Blout be redeposed expressly contemplated that NIAC 

would “further” produce the remaining Outlook entries it had 

withheld, and NIAC did make a further production of those 

entries before Blout was redeposed in September 2010. But 

the Appellants knew of the existence of NIAC meeting notes 

in Salesforce that were just as directly relevant to Blout’s 

redeposition as the Outlook entries, and of which the court 

was not yet aware, and therefore could not have included in 

its minute order. The Appellants would not produce these 

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documents until February 2011, five months after Daioleslam 

deposed Blout for the second time. J.A. 623-24. Just as 

surely as the Appellants’ withholding of NIAC’s server 

disobeyed a series of written orders, their failure to produce 

meeting notes before Daioleslam redeposed Blout frustrated 

the purpose of the court’s March 5, 2010 minute order and 

caused significant needless expense to Daioleslam. 

In the same vein, we agree with the District Court that 

NIAC’s “belated” production of its Salesforce data, in 

violation of the court’s March 2011 Order, caused Daioleslam 

to bear unnecessary expense by redeposing Parsi in May 

2011. Parsi, 286 F.R.D. at 85. That order required the 

Appellants to coordinate with Daioleslam to schedule Parsi’s 

second deposition by April 6, 2011. In the same paragraph, 

the court ordered the Appellants to “produce all documents to 

be used during [Parsi’s] follow-up deposition at least three (3) 

business days prior to” the scheduled deposition. J.A. 329. 

Later in the same order, the court made clear that NIAC was 

to produce any codes necessary to translate all of its 

previously produced Salesforce data as well as its “entire 

membership list in Convio (and all incorporated data fields) . . 

. current as of the date that it is produced.” J.A. 331. When 

Daioleslam redeposed Parsi in May 2011, however, NIAC 

had not complied with the March 2011 Order. The only 

additional production it had made was a list of Convio 

“transactions” that mostly listed donations, rather than a 

complete list of current members, as the court had ordered. 

J.A. 446-47. It was not until after the court’s August 2011

Order—and months after Parsi’s wasted second deposition—

that NIAC complied.

The Appellants’ failure to obey the court’s orders caused 

part of Daioleslam’s deposition expenses. The District Court 

acted within its discretion in ordering the Appellants to pay 

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for part of Parsi and Blout’s redepositions and for the cost of 

preparing the corresponding sections of Daioleslam’s 

sanctions motion.

III.

In addition to sanctions contemplated by the Federal 

Rules of Civil Procedure, courts have an inherent power at 

common law, Chambers v. NASCO, Inc., 501 U.S. 32, 44 

(1991), to “protect their institutional integrity and to guard 

against abuses of the judicial process with contempt citations, 

fines, awards of attorneys’ fees, and such other orders and 

sanctions as they find necessary, including even dismissals 

and default judgments.” Shepherd, 62 F.3d at 1472. These 

powers inhere in the very nature of courts as an institution, 

and are “necessary to the exercise of all others.” United 

States v. Hudson, 11 U.S. 32, 34 (1812). Courts have 

discretion to determine a fitting sanction for conduct that 

abuses judicial proceedings, including assessing attorney’s 

fees. This authority is an exception to the background 

American Rule limiting cost-shifting generally. Chambers, 

501 U.S. at 45. 

Apart from two other narrow exceptions not relevant 

here, a finding of bad faith is required for an award of 

attorney’s fees under the court’s inherent power. Id. at 45-46;

Roadway Express, Inc. v. Piper, 447 U.S. 752, 765-66 (1980);

see Tucker v. Williams, 682 F.3d 654, 662 (7th Cir. 2012) (the 

“inherent power . . . is not a grant of authority to do good, 

rectify shortcomings of the common law . . . or undermine the 

American rule on the award of attorneys’ fees”) (second 

alteration in original) (internal quotation marks omitted). We 

have held that exercise of a court’s power to impose “inherent 

power sanctions that are fundamentally penal” requires that it 

find bad faith by clear and convincing evidence. Shepherd, 

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62 F.3d at 1478; see also id. at 1474-78; Aoude v. Mobil Oil 

Corp., 892 F.2d 1115, 1118 (1st Cir. 1989) (requiring clear 

and convincing evidence of bad faith to impose inherent 

power dismissal for a fraud on the court). In contrast, “issuerelated sanctions [that] are fundamentally remedial rather than 

punitive and do not preclude a trial on the merits”—such as 

barring admission of evidence or considering an issue 

established for the purpose of the action—can be imposed on 

a showing that the sanctioned party resisted discovery by a 

preponderance of the evidence. Shepherd, 62 F.3d at 1478. 

The clear and convincing standard “generally requires the 

trier of fact, in viewing each party’s pile of evidence, to reach 

a firm conviction of the truth on the evidence about which he 

or she is certain.” United States v. Montague, 40 F.3d 1251, 

1255 (D.C. Cir. 1994). 

The District Court read Shepherd to require clear and 

convincing evidence of bad faith only to impose the sanction 

of dismissal, see Parsi, 286 F.R.D. at 77, but we emphasized

in Shepherd that “for those inherent power sanctions that are 

fundamentally penal—dismissals and default judgments, as 

well as contempt orders, awards of attorneys’ fees, and the 

imposition of fines—the district court must find clear and 

convincing evidence of the predicate misconduct.” 62 F.3d at 

1478 (emphasis added). Since the sanctions the District 

Court imposed consisted entirely of litigation expenses and 

fees, we will affirm them only if the court found by clear and 

convincing evidence that NIAC acted in bad faith. 

A.

The Appellants claim that the District Court did not 

purport to make a finding of bad faith under the proper 

standard of proof when it awarded expenses for their failure to 

produce emails with third parties. Appellants’ Br. at 54. 

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While the District Court might not have articulated the 

Shepherd standard in the most clear and explicit manner, 

however, we have no difficulty concluding it made the proper 

finding.

We have made clear in the context of sanctions that the 

term “bad faith” is not a “talisman[] required for affirmance.” 

LaPrade v. Kidder Peabody & Co., 146 F.3d 899, 906 (D.C. 

Cir. 1998). Nor do we require a district court to employ the 

magic words “clear and convincing” to uphold its finding 

under that standard of proof; we look instead to the 

circumstances of the court’s factfinding. United States v. 

Sobin, 56 F.3d 1423, 1428-29 (D.C. Cir. 1995); see also 

United States v. Walsh, 119 F.3d 115, 121-22 (2d Cir. 1997)

(“Even though the district judge did not explicitly identify the 

standard of proof by which he found [the defendant] had 

committed perjury, because the evidence clearly supports that 

finding and because the tenor of the judge’s ruling reflects his 

firm convictions on that score, we have no doubt that the 

judge’s finding passed the clear-and-convincing standard.”).

Here, the District Court described the Appellants’ 

withholding of relevant emails as “indefensible.” Parsi, 286 

F.R.D. at 84. It noted that NIAC and Parsi made no attempt 

to explain the omission, which in any event it described as 

“inexplicable.” Id. The court also condemned NIAC and 

Parsi for misrepresenting during a hearing that technical 

reasons precluded them from producing almost 170 angry 

emails from Iranian-Americans, when Daioleslam’s subpoena 

to NIAC’s damages expert revealed the organization had 

managed to compile the emails in order to demonstrate it had 

suffered membership losses due to Daioleslam’s allegedly 

defamatory statements. The court’s reproach for the 

Appellants’ conduct, in other words, was evident, and was 

based on a firm conviction that they had abused the discovery 

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process. In Shepherd, by contrast, we reversed because the 

district court expressly applied the preponderance of the 

evidence standard and rejected the argument that it should use 

the clear and convincing evidence standard in imposing 

inherent authority sanctions. 62 F.3d at 1475. Given the 

District Court’s unmistakable conviction, supported amply by 

the evidence, that the Appellants withheld numerous emails 

with third parties they should have known were relevant, “it 

would be an empty formalism to find an abuse of discretion 

simply because the [D]istrict [C]ourt failed to invoke the 

magic words ‘bad faith’”—or “clear and convincing.” 

LaPrade, 146 F.3d at 906. 

In view of the Appellants’ failure to explain their 

withholding of so many relevant documents, some of which 

they misrepresented to the District Court that they could not 

locate, we cannot conclude it was clearly erroneous to find the 

Appellants acted in bad faith. See First Bank of Marietta v. 

Hartford Underwriters Ins. Co., 307 F.3d 501, 525 (6th Cir. 

2002) (finding bad faith where plaintiff withheld document 

that it knew undermined its cause of action); cf. Bonds, 93 

F.3d at 812-13 (rejecting evidentiary sanction equivalent to 

default, partly because “[t]here is no evidence that the 

[defendant] withheld anything in discovery”). 

B.

However, we cannot similarly conclude that the District 

Court found misconduct by clear and convincing evidence 

sufficient to uphold sanctions for Parsi’s purported alteration 

of the IIC document. The District Court explicitly stated it 

could not find by clear and convincing evidence that Parsi 

altered the document in bad faith. Parsi, 286 F.R.D. at 87.

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Likewise, we cannot affirm the court’s award of expenses 

for Parsi’s false interrogatory response that he had used a 

desktop computer that Progressive Office indicated was not 

connected to the network. Here, the District Court explicitly 

averted to the possibility that, since the Appellants “devoted 

little attention to this issue in their briefing or at the motions 

hearing, . . . [the court] may be awarding sanctions based on 

conduct for which there is an innocent explanation that 

plaintiffs have simply failed to give.” Id. at 86. 

The District Court awarded $25,242.17 for Daioleslam’s 

expenses in preparing his sanctions motion. J.A. 912. It 

appears that the sections on Parsi’s interrogatory response and 

the IIC document represent only a minor part of this motion, 

but that is for the District Court to determine in the first 

instance. We reverse this part of the sanctions award, and 

remand for re-determination by the District Court under the 

proper standard we have articulated. 

IV.

Finally, we reverse the District Court’s award of postjudgment interest to run from the date of its summary 

judgment opinion on September 13, 2012 instead of from its 

Final Order on April 9, 2013. Daioleslam does not contest 

this determination. See Appellee’s Br. at 31 n.10. Interest 

runs “from the date of the entry of the judgment,” 28 U.S.C. § 

1961(a), which requires the court to enter final judgment 

under Rule 54(b). Mergentime Corp. v. Washington Metro. 

Area Transit Auth., 166 F.3d 1257, 1268 (D.C. Cir. 1999); see 

also FED R. CIV. P. 54(b) (absent an express finding by 

district court that there is no just reason for delay, final 

judgment requires adjudication of “all the claims and all the 

parties’ rights and liabilities”). Since the District Court did 

not resolve Daioleslam’s final bill of recoverable costs until 

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April 9, 2013, post-judgment interest can only run from that 

date.

V.

For the foregoing reasons, we affirm in part the District 

Court’s award of sanctions, and reverse the award of 

Daioleslam’s expenses in preparing the portions of his 

sanctions motion related to NIAC’s alteration of a document 

and Parsi’s interrogatory responses, as well as the award of 

post-judgment interest to run from September 13, 2012. We 

remand to the District Court for reconsideration of those 

aspects of its judgment under the proper standard.

So ordered.

USCA Case #12-7111 Document #1536782 Filed: 02/10/2015 Page 32 of 32