Mintz, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C. achieved another victory for client CrossFit, Inc. in an ongoing dispute against the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA). CrossFit’s claims are based on a number of false statements, including false injury data, which the NSCA published in its premier international journal, the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, about CrossFit training.

In this latest victory, the Court imposed harsh evidentiary, issue, and monetary sanctions against the NSCA after concluding, “There is plainly sufficient evidence to find willfulness, bad faith, or fault on the part of the NSCA in withholding the recently discovered documents and in lying under oath in the federal proceedings.” Among the issue sanctions the Court imposed, the jury will be instructed to accept as true that the NSCA intentionally published misleading injury data to lure potential customers away from CrossFit and toward NSCA-certified strength coaches and personal trainers. For the NSCA’s discovery malfeasance, CrossFit was also awarded $73,500 in its legal fees in connection with the sanctions motion and allowed to amend its complaint to add new claims based on information in the withheld documents. Additionally, the NSCA will pay for CrossFit to retain a forensic expert to search the NSCA’s servers for additional responsive documents. If additional evidence of discovery misconduct is found, the Court will allow CrossFit to renew its motion for terminating sanctions.

In September 2016, Mintz also obtained partial summary judgment for CrossFit against the NSCA as to the falsity of the fabricated injury data at issue and defeated the NSCA’s separate motion for summary judgment.

The Mintz team included Mitch Danzig, a Member in the firm’s Litigation and Employment, Labor and Benefits Practices, Wynter Deagle, a Member in the firm’s Litigation Practice, and Justin Nahama and Natalie Prescott, attorneys in Mintz’s Litigation Practice.