[DO NOT PUBLISH]

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

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No. 17-12177

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D.C. Docket Nos. 1:16-cv-03719-LMM; 15-bkc-64711-MGD

IN RE: HAMPTON ISLAND OWNERS’ ASSOCIATION, INC. 

 Debtor,

_____________________________________________________ 

 

HAMPTON ISLAND HOLDINGS, LLC, 

THE HAMPTON ISLAND CLUB, LLC, 

BLUE HERON INVESTMENTS, LLC, 

FULCRUM LOAN HOLDINGS, LLC,

HAMPTON ISLAND CLUB, LLC, 

HAMPTON ISLAND, LLC, 

LIBERTY CAPITAL, LLC, 

REFLECTIONS HOUSE, LLC, 

TURTLE LAKE HOLDINGS, LLC, 

 Plaintiffs - Appellants,

HAMPTON LAND HOLDINGS, LLC,

 Plaintiff,

versus

LEE BURTON, 

THOMAS BURTON, 

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SPOTTAIL LANDING, LLC, 

REBECCA TALLMAN, 

EDWARD TALLMAN, et al.,

 Defendants - Appellees.

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Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of Georgia

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(May 22, 2018)

Before ROSENBAUM and JILL PRYOR, Circuit Judges, and BARTLE,

* District 

Judge.

PER CURIAM: 

This appeal arises out of a protracted, multi-fora dispute between a number 

of property owners (the “Property Owners,” who are appellees in this case) on 

Hampton Island, a residential real estate development on the Georgia coast, and 

real estate developer Ron Leventhal (who is not a party to this appeal), along with

several entities he owns and controls, including Hampton Island Owner’s 

Association, Inc. (“HIOA,” also a non-party) and the appellants in this case 

(together, the “Leventhal entities”). In the midst of state-court litigation among

these parties, HIOA filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Seeking to identify HIOA’s 

assets and liabilities, particularly amounts owed to or by the Leventhal entities, the 

Property Owners sought discovery under Bankruptcy Rule 2004 from the 

 * Honorable Harvey Bartle III, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of 

Pennsylvania, sitting by designation.

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Leventhal entities. See Fed. R. Bankr. P. 2004 (authorizing the bankruptcy court to 

“order the examination of any entity” by “any party in interest” so long as the 

examination “relate[s] only to the acts, conduct, or property or to the liabilities and 

financial condition of the debtor, or to any matter which may affect the 

administration of the debtor’s estate, or to the debtor’s right to a discharge”). The

bankruptcy court granted the Property Owners’ discovery requests. After finding

that the Leventhal entities failed to comply with its order compelling production of 

certain documents, the bankruptcy court imposed sanctions, jointly and severally,

on the Leventhal entities. The Leventhal entities appealed the sanctions order to 

the district court, which affirmed. See Order Affirming Sanctions Award, 

Hampton Island Holdings, LLC et al. v. Burton et al., No. 1:16-CV-03719-LMM 

(N.D. Ga. April 12, 2017). The Leventhal entities then appealed to this Court.

After careful review of the record, and with the benefit of oral argument, we 

agree with the district court’s analysis and adopt its reasoning as our own, with the 

exception of a portion of Part III.c of the district court’s order that addresses the 

Leventhal entities’ argument that the bankruptcy court failed to make a finding that 

each entity violated its discovery obligations such that it properly could be held 

jointly and severally liable for the sanctions award. The district court determined

that the Leventhal entities had failed to argue to the bankruptcy court that some 

entities had not violated any discovery obligation, and the Leventhal entities 

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therefore had failed to preserve any such argument. The Leventhal entities appear

to us to have sufficiently preserved this argument, however, at least with respect to

some of the entities’ failure to produce tax returns. Nevertheless, we agree with 

the district court’s alternative ruling that the Leventhal entities’ argument fails on 

the merits. The bankruptcy court found that all of the Leventhal entities failed to 

comply with their discovery obligations, and that finding is supported by the 

record. Even if not all of the Leventhal entities were required to or could produce 

tax returns, they all were required to produce general ledgers in compliance with 

the court’s order and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure—that is, in the 

electronic form in which the ledgers were “ordinarily maintained or in a reasonably 

usable form,” Fed. R. Civ. P. 34(b)(2)(E)(ii)—and all failed to do so by the 

deadline the bankruptcy court set. 

We affirm the district court’s order upholding the bankruptcy court’s 

imposition of sanctions, jointly and severally, upon the Leventhal entities.

AFFIRMED.

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