In re Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.

392 S.W.3d 687, 2010 Tex. App. LEXIS 4690, 2010 WL 2510371
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJune 23, 2010
DocketNo. 05-10-00485-CV
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 392 S.W.3d 687 (In re Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
In re Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 392 S.W.3d 687, 2010 Tex. App. LEXIS 4690, 2010 WL 2510371 (Tex. Ct. App. 2010).

Opinion

OPINION

Opinion By

Justice LANG-MIERS.

In this mandamus proceeding, The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company seeks relief from the trial court’s order compelling it to respond to requests for production and the court’s protective order, which Goodyear contends does not provide adequate protection for its trade secrets. Because we conclude that the trial court abused its discretion, we conditionally grant the writ of mandamus.

BACKGROUND

This is a products liability case. Fre-drickson sued Goodyear and others alleging that a Goodyear tire she and her husband purchased was defectively designed, manufactured, and marketed. She alleged that in May 2007, she and her husband purchased two Trail Buster Radial D/T LT245/75/R16 Load Range E Kelly tires for their Ford F-250 truck. She alleged that she and her husband were on the way home from the feed store in December 2007 when the tread on one of the tires separated and caused the truck to enter a side skid and roll multiple times. Her husband was ejected from the truck and died many days later as the result of his injuries.

Fredrickson alleged that the tire, although purchased in 2007, was manufactured in 1998. She alleged that the tire was defective in design because it did not incorporate internal components, including nylon strips or overlays, “with the requisite fatigue resistance to counter the constant centrifugal force” resulting from normal operation; and because the chemical compound was not sufficient to maintain adhesion “between the belt package” under normal use. She alleged that the tire was defectively manufactured because the rubber between the tire’s components was not “manufactured to a specification that would withstand the fatigue caused by the centrifugal forces” resulting from normal use, causing the separation of the tire’s internal components, including the steel belts. And she alleged that Goodyear failed to adequately warn her about the dangers associated with purchasing a tire that did not contain nylon strips or overlays, that the adhesion of the tire’s internal components could deteriorate over time, or about the tire’s propensity for tread/belt separation under normal use.

Fredrickson included 126 requests for production with her original petition. The requests at issue in this proceeding sought:

• plant specifications, practices, and procedures for the plant where the accident tire was manufactured;
• documents about tread separations, tread/belt separations, and belt edge separations in passenger and light truck tires;
• documents about recalls and replacement programs for any Trail Buster tire and any tire with the same green tire specification or skim stock as the accident tire;
• adjustment data, incident reports, and product liability reports for all tires [691]*691with nylon overlays, zero degree cap piles, or nylon belt edge strips, Trail Buster tires, and tires with the same green tire specification or skim stock as the accident tire;
• all reports and other documents reflecting tread separation occurrences of steel belted radial passenger and light truck tires;
• reports and other documents reflecting failures in service of steel belted radial passenger and light truck tires in which a tire suffered tread or tread belt separation and caused a subsequent loss of control of the vehicle;
• documents and reports of adjustment records provided to plant chemists, management or corporate headquarters;
• documents reflecting incident reports or complaints of tread belt separation for Trail Buster tires and for all tires with the same green specification or skim stock as the accident tire;
• test wheel data, durability tire testing, endurance tire testing, and high speed tire testing data for all tires produced at the same plant as the accident tire;
• air permeability testing data, specifications, and standards for Trail Buster as it relates to testing data for inner liners;
• a sample liner for tires with the same green tire specification as the accident tire;
• documents about product change notifications, design change notifications, and compound change notifications for the accident tire;
• documents about specification changes, material changes, and processing changes;
• vibration, ride disturbance, and ride return summaries, graphs, and charts that include the accident green tire specification;
• plant process reviews for the plant where the accident tire was manufactured;
• adjustment follow-up reports for changes made to the accident tire;
• documents relating to the testing, cost analysis, use of, competitor use evaluations, and discussions of nylon overlays, spiral nylon overwraps, nylon cap plies, belt edge gumstrips, and belt wedges;
• documents showing the per-unit cost of the type of belt wire used in the accident tire;
• documents that demonstrate the type of belt wire used in tires manufactured in 1998;
• documents provided to NHTSA regarding tread separations.

Most of these requests sought information from 1995 to the present.

Goodyear objected to the requests alleging that they were overly broad, unduly burdensome, and sought information protected by the trade secret privilege. Pursuant to a rule 11 protective order agreement, Goodyear agreed to produce some documents responsive to Fredrickson’s requests. However, Goodyear and Fredrick-son each filed a motion for protective order and attached a sample proposed protective order. Fredrickson also filed a motion to compel responses to her requests. During a hearing on the motions, Fredrickson withdrew her request nos. 8, 10, 20, and 89.

After the hearings, the trial court issued an order compelling Goodyear to provide a “full response” to the requests within thirty days of the date of the order. Although the court restricted the time frame on some of the requests to five years, it otherwise overruled Goodyear’s objections. [692]*692The trial court also issued a protective order incorporating provisions from both parties’ sample proposed protective orders. In this mandamus proceeding, Goodyear challenges the trial court’s order compelling it to respond to the requests, arguing that the requests are overly broad and violate its privilege against disclosure of trade secrets. Goodyear also challenges the trial court’s protective order, arguing that it does not provide adequate protection for Goodyear’s trade secrets.

Standard of Review

Mandamus relief is available when the trial court abuses its discretion and there is no adequate remedy by appeal. In re Deere & Co., 299 S.W.3d 819, 820 (Tex.2009) (per curiam). Although the scope of discovery generally is “within the trial court’s discretion, the trial court must make an effort to impose reasonable discovery limits.” Id. (quoting In re Graco Children’s Prods., Inc.,

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
392 S.W.3d 687, 2010 Tex. App. LEXIS 4690, 2010 WL 2510371, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-goodyear-tire-rubber-co-texapp-2010.