In 1975, a gun malfunctioned and injured its owner. The owner sued the gun-maker and won an $847,000 judgment. But the gun-maker is based in Turkey and has ignored all efforts to collect the judgment, and today the debt has risen to about $25 million. When the owner learned in 2011 that the gun-maker had a large transaction with an American company, the owner sought post-judgment discovery in aid of judgment-execution from the American company, and the district court denied it in part because it thought discovery might be futile. The owner appealed, and CA3 reversed, holding that the district court “improperly considered the possibility that discovery might be futile without determining whether that was in fact the case.”

The case is Ohntrup v. Makina Ve Kimya Endustrisi Kurumu. Opinion by Hardiman, joined by Ambro and Fisher. Arguing counsel were William Ford for the American company, Casey Green for the owner, and Thomas Sullivan for the poor law firm that represented the gun-maker at trial and finally was allowed to withdraw from the case.