| In In re City of Detroit, Michigan, the Michigan Department of Attorney General (the “Department”) found itself in hot water over its disclosure of certain confidential documents to defendants in their criminal cases arising out of the Flint water crisis (the “Flint Defendants”). The documents at issue were the subject of several mediation orders in the Detroit bankruptcy case, which prohibited the disclosure of “[a]ll proceedings, discussions, negotiation, and writings incident to mediation….” The Department was a mediation participant in mediations held in the bankruptcy case.
The bankruptcy court recited the elements of civil contempt, which require that (1) a party violated a specific order requiring the party to perform or refrain from performing a particular act, (2) the party did so with knowledge of the order, and (3) there is objectively no doubt over whether the order barred such conduct. The court found that the Department could and should be held in civil contempt of court, as it produced a large number of mediation-related documents to the Flint Defendants, despite being a participant in the bankruptcy mediations and having actual knowledge of the mediation orders violated.
|
