09
Jun
By Eric Schweibenz
On June 3, 2014, ALJ Theodore R. Essex issued the public version of Order No. 11 (dated May 19, 2014) denying Complainant Trico Products Corp.’s (“Trico”) motion to compel Respondents Federal-Mogul Corp. and Federal-Mogul SA (collectively, “Federal-Mogul”) to produce documents in Certain Windshield Wipers and Components Thereof (Inv. No. 337-TA-902).

According to the Order, Trico sought to compel Federal-Mogul to conduct a search of its European-based employees and produce documents responsive to Trico’s discovery requests in light of deposition testimony of five such employees who stated that either they were not asked to collect documents, or were asked to collect only a limited set of test results.  Federal-Mogul sought to use documents from Investigation No. 337-TA-881 involving the same parties to satisfy Trico’s discovery requests in this investigation, but Trico argued that those documents are not detailed enough because (1) the accused products in this investigation were only at issue in the 881 Investigation with respect to domestic industry; and (2) the 881 Investigation concerned the wiper blade spoiler, while this investigation deals with the flexor and connecting devices on the wiper blade.  Thus, according to Trico, a new document search related to the flexor and connector is necessary.

Federal-Mogul countered that it produced over 50,000 substantive documents already, and that the witnesses in question attested to the broad search performed in the 881 Investigation and conducted an additional search for documents since their depositions, but found none.  Federal-Mogul also contended that, contrary to Trico’s assertion, there are more components at issue in the 881 Investigation than just the spoiler, such as the flexor and connector.

ALJ Essex denied Trico’s motion as “a broad request to basically restart and redo discovery” that suffers from a “lack of specificity,” finding Trico’s arguments to “hinge on the use of segments of deposition testimony by selected Federal-Mogul’s [sic] witnesses (while ignoring the testimony of others) as well as an apparent mischaracterization of the relevance of the documents produced in the 881 Investigation.”