Well, that's the current procedural posture. With default over discovery misconduct, that is considered the most drastic sanction that can be imposed. It does not in this case mean that Jones failed to appear or participate in the proceedings. The court (courts actually as he also defaulted in Texas) has actually justified its order in a fairly detailed written opinion (unlike some judges in Texas I could mention), so whether or not it was legally sound is probably subject to a less deferential standard of review.
When drastic sanctions are appropriate is also a fairly important legal issue to any other cases in the pipeline, so it should be addressed (relatively) speedily.
I went into this in a fair amount of detail
in the Jones/Infowars thread so I won't repeat that here. Although lengthy, it's more or less off the cuff and not based on a full reading of both cases. It will take a while to catch up as they're fairly voluminous.
We'll have time, though, because sorting out the whole bankruptcy stay thing will take a while.
