K.S.A. 60-237.Compelling discovery; failure to comply; sanctions; failure to preserve electronically stored information

Before filing a motion to compel, the movant has to certify it tried in good faith to work things out without court intervention and describe the steps taken. The motion goes to the court where the action is pending for a request directed at a party, or to the district where discovery is happening for a request directed at a nonparty. It covers a failure to make a required disclosure, a deponent's refusal to answer under K.S.A. 60-230 or 60-231, an organization's failure to designate a witness, a party's failure to answer interrogatories under K.S.A. 60-233, or a failure to produce documents or permit inspection under K.S.A. 60-234 -- and an evasive or incomplete answer counts as no answer at all. If the motion is granted, the court must generally make the losing side pay the movant's reasonable expenses, including attorney's fees, unless the movant skipped good-faith efforts first, the opposing position was substantially justified, or other circumstances make an award unjust; the same fee-shifting runs the other way if the motion is denied, and the court can apportion expenses when a motion is granted in part and denied in part.

Disobeying a court order carries heavier consequences. A deponent who won't be sworn or answer in the district where discovery is taken can be held in contempt there. Where the action is pending, a party who defies a discovery order -- or fails to produce someone for examination under K.S.A. 60-235 -- can face an escalating menu of sanctions: having facts taken as established against it, being barred from supporting or opposing designated claims or defenses or introducing certain evidence, having pleadings struck, a stay of proceedings, dismissal, default judgment, or contempt (contempt is off the table only for disobeying an order to submit to a physical or mental exam). The court must also order payment of the reasonable expenses the failure caused, unless the failure was substantially justified or other circumstances make that unjust.

Subsection (c) covers failures short of violating a court order. Failing to disclose or supplement information as K.S.A. 60-226(b)(6) or (e) requires bars using that information or witness later, unless the failure was substantially justified or harmless, and the court can add expense-shifting, tell the jury about the failure, or impose the same sanctions listed for order violations. Failing to admit something later proved true or genuine under K.S.A. 60-236 means paying the reasonable expenses of proving it, unless the request was objectionable, unimportant, reasonably contested, or there was other good reason not to admit. Subsection (d) handles a party's own failure to show up for its deposition or answer interrogatories or a production request -- sanctions are available even without a prior order, and objecting to the discovery itself is no excuse unless a protective-order motion is pending.

Subsection (e) is narrower and more recent in focus: it addresses electronically stored information that should have been preserved for litigation but was lost because a party didn't take reasonable steps to preserve it, and can't be restored or replaced through more discovery. If another party is prejudiced by that loss, the court may order measures no greater than necessary to cure the prejudice. But the harsher remedies -- presuming the lost information was unfavorable, instructing the jury it may or must presume that, or dismissing the action or entering default judgment -- are available only on a finding that the party acted with intent to deprive another party of the information's use.