AVX Corp. v. Cabot Corp.

252 F.R.D. 70, 71 Fed. R. Serv. 3d 366, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 58626, 2008 WL 2944683
District Court, D. Massachusetts·Decided August 1, 2008·No. Civil Action No. 04-10467-RGS·Published·Cited by 8 cases

Opinion

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER ON AVX CORPORATION’S OBJECTION TO THE DECISION OF THE MAGISTRATE JUDGE

STEARNS, District Judge.

After careful review of Magistrate Judge Bowler’s comprehensive Memorandum and Order on Cabot Corporation’s Motion to Strike, and after considering AVX Corporation and AVX Limited’s (collectively AVX) Objection and Memorandum, Cabot’s Opposition, and AVX’s Reply, I will OVERRULE the Objection to the Magistrate Judge’s Order. Her decision is well-reasoned and provides ample grounds for striking AVX’s un[72]*72timely attempt to supplement its expert witness’s interrogatory response.

In arguing that the Magistrate Judge’s decision is “clearly erroneous,” AVX alleges that she wrongly: (1) concluded that AVX had not previously engaged an expert to calculate its damages; (2) disbelieved AVX’s claim that it was under the impression that the December 17, 2007 expert report deadline had been extended; (3) misconstrued the history of the litigation to AVX’s detriment; and (4) misweighed any prejudice to Cabot in considering sanctions. The court, in previous orders, has addressed points 2 and 3.1 As to AVX’s first point, its expert testified that while he had been consulted about damages prior to the submission of his expert report in December of 2007, he had not been asked to prepare an opinion on the subject. See Cabot’s Opposition Ex. 4. In assessing the prejudice to Cabot, the Magistrate Judge accurately noted that permitting late supplementation would place Cabot “in the difficult position of having to defend against the calculations and the amount of damages without being able to challenge and explore the calculations and the amount during fact and expert discovery.... [It] also hampered Cabot’s ability to judge its monetary exposure and marshal resources accordingly.” Magistrate Judge’s June 18, 2008 Order, at 23-24. On June 25, 2008, the court held a hearing on the parties’ cross-motions for summary judgment as contemplated by the long-established schedule, thereby deepening the prejudice to Cabot. I fully agree with the Magistrate Judge’s determination that AVX has failed to meet its burden of justifying the delayed disclosure or of showing that the consequences are harmless. Wilson v. Bradlees of New England, Inc., 250 F.3d 10, 21 (1st Cir.2001).2

Given the force of the 1993 amendments to Rules 26 and 37, the sanctions imposed by Magistrate Judge Bowler are appropriate, indeed virtually required. See Gagnon v. Teledyne Princeton, Inc., 437 F.3d 188, 191 (1st Cir.2006) (“The adoption of Rule 37(c)(1) in 1993 ‘gave teeth to a significantly broadened duty’ to comply with case management orders.”), quoting Primus v. United States, 389 F.3d 231, 234 (1st Cir.2004). Because I agree with the Magistrate Judge’s Memorandum in all material respects, the objection is OVERRULED.

ORDER

For the foregoing reasons, AVX’s Objection to Magistrate Judge Bowler’s Memorandum and Order on Cabot Corporation’s Motion to Strike is OVERRULED. Her Order is ADOPTED as the Order of this court. Her June 18, 2008 opinion will be attached to and incorporated into this Order.

SO ORDERED.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER RE: DEFENDANT CABOT CORPORATION’S MOTION TO STRIKE AVX’S FURTHER SUPPLEMENTAL RESPONSES TO CABOT CORPORATION’S FIRST SET OF INTERROGATORIES (DOCKET ENTRY #124)

June 18, 2008

BOWLER, United States Magistrate Judge.

Pending before this court is a motion to strike an untimely supplemental answer to a damages interrogatory served by plaintiffs AVX Corporation and AVX Limited (“AVX”) on defendant Cabot Corporation (“Cabot”) after the close of fact and expert discovery. (Docket Entry # 124). The motion is fully briefed and therefore ripe for review.

BACKGROUND

This action is one of several other actions involving a five year supply agreement under which AVX agreed to purchase certain minimum annual quantities of flake and non-flake tantalum. With sufficient market power in flake tantalum powder, Cabot purportedly [73]*73conditioned AVX’s purchase of flake tantalum upon AVX’s purchase of non-flake tantalum in violation of section one of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1. AVX alleges a per se tying case with flake tantalum being the tying product and non-flake nodular tantalum and a material known as KTaf being the tied produces]. (Docket Entry # 115; Docket Entry # 120, n. 3). AVX submits that Cabot used its monopoly on flake tantalum to force AVX into the long term supply agreement that required AVX to purchase both flake and non-flake tantalum.

According to the complaint, Cabot is one of four companies in the world that processes tantalum for sale to companies such as AVX. As alleged in the complaint, the three other companies are H.C. Starck, NEICC and, notably, Showa Cabot (“Showa”), a Japanese company and wholly owned subsidiary of Cabot.3 (Docket Entry # 1).

The parties have a long and equally contentious litigation history. The remains of that history consist of this action and an ongoing state court action in which AVX asserts that Cabot breached the most favored nation provision in the long term supply agreement. To support its position, AVX attaches a February 2008 opinion in the state court action imposing sanctions on Cabot because of the late presentation of a new theory of loss after the close of discovery. After reciting conduct on the part of both AVX and Cabot, the associate justice in the state court action reopened discovery to allow AVX an opportunity to explore the right of first refusal provision in the agreement that was implicated by the new theory.

Discovery in this action was hard fought on both sides and involved numerous delays in the discovery schedule. To briefly summarize the background, on December 7, 2005, the parties filed a joint statement setting out proposed deadlines for fact and expert discovery. The joint statement proposed, with certain exceptions, the application of the default deadline for expert disclosure set forth in Rule 26(a)(2)(B), Fed.R.Civ.P. It also set December 31, 2005, as the date for the initial Rule 26(a)(1) disclosures. The court approved the schedule on December 7, 2005, thereby establishing December 31, 2005, as the deadline to provide Rule 26(a) disclosures, including a computation of damages. See Rule 26(a)(l)(A)(iii), Fed.R.Civ.P.

On October 5, 2006, the parties jointly requested an extension of “all deadlines.” (Docket Entry # 43). The court allowed the motion the following day thereby extending the deadlines for a period of 120 days. Accordingly, to the extent the order impacted the December 31, 2005 deadline, the new deadline for Rule 26(a) disclosures became May 1, 2006. Meanwhile, Cabot continued to delay responding to interrogatories and requests for production served by AVX.4

On January 30, 2007, Cabot filed a joint motion to extend various deadlines.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

AVX Corp. v. Cabot Corp., 252 F.R.D. 70, 71 Fed. R. Serv. 3d 366, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 58626, 2008 WL 2944683 (D. Mass. 2008).

252 F.R.D. 70 (AVX Corp. v. Cabot Corp.) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

Related