LKQ Corporation v. Kia America, Inc.

District Court, N.D. Illinois·Decided May 15, 2023·No. 1:21-cv-03166·Unknown

Opinion

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS EASTERN DIVISION

LKQ CORPORATION, and KEYSTONE AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRIES, INC.,

Plaintiffs, Case No. 21 C 3166 v.

KIA MOTORS AMERICA, INC. and Magistrate Judge Sunil R. Harjani KIA MOTORS CORPORATION,

Defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

Before the Court is Defendants’ Motion to Compel: (1) a Complete Response to Interrogatory No. 1; (2) Production of Documents Responsive to Request for Production No. 4; and (3) Production of Documents without Improper Redactions [220]. For the following reasons, Kia’s motion is granted in part and denied in part.

BACKGROUND

In this patent infringement litigation over automotive parts, Kia’s counterclaims assert that LKQ infringes Kia design patents relating to headlamps and taillamps. After numerous attempts to meet and confer pursuant to Local Rule 37.2 and this Court’s standing order, Kia moves to compel three categories of documents and/or information from LKQ. See generally Doc. 219. First, Kia requests a complete response to Kia Interrogatory No. 1 (“ROG No. 1”). Id. at 5-11. Second, Kia asks the Court to order LKQ to produce certain electronically stored documents regarding LKQ’s products at issue that are allegedly responsive to Kia’s Request for Production No. 4 (“RFP No. 4”). Id. at 11-14. Third, Kia seeks the production of certain documents without redactions that LKQ originally produced with redactions because they were purportedly not relevant or responsive. Id. at 14-15. Kia also requests reasonable expenses and attorney fees pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37(a)(5)(A). Id. at 15.

LKQ responds that the Court should sustain its objections and deny Kia’s motion to compel. See generally Doc. 241. Regarding ROG No. 1, LKQ asserts that Kia is not entitled to discovery regarding products not accused of infringing the asserted patents because such discovery is irrelevant. Id. at 7-12. With respect to RFP No. 4, LKQ argues that it conducted a reasonable search for responsive documents, and the remaining documents that Kia seeks are not proportionate to the needs of the case, are publicly available, and are already in Kia’s possession. Id. at 12-15. In response to Kia’s request for unredacted documents, LKQ claims its redactions of irrelevant and non-responsive documents are proper. Id. at 15-18. LKQ also contends that Kia’s request for fees and costs should be rejected, and instead, LKQ should be awarded its fees and costs. Id. at 18-19. The Court addresses each issue in turn below.

DISCUSSION

I. Discovery Requests

In ruling on a motion to compel, the discovery standard set forth in Rule 26(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure governs. Under Rule 26(b)(1), parties are entitled to obtain discovery regarding “any nonprivileged matter that is relevant to any party’s claim or defense and proportional to the needs of the case.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1). In determining the scope of discovery under Rule 26, relevance is construed broadly. Oppenheimer Fund, Inc. v. Sanders, 437 U.S. 340, 351 (1978). Discoverable information is not limited to evidence admissible at trial. Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1); Breuder v. Bd. of Trustees of Cmty. Coll. Dist. No. 502, 2021 WL 229656, at *2 (N.D. Ill. Jan. 22, 2021). The objecting party carries the burden of showing why a particular discovery request is improper. Kodish v. Oakbrook Terrace Fire Prot. Dist., 235 F.R.D. 447, 450 (N.D. Ill. 2006). Furthermore, magistrate judges “enjoy extremely broad discretion in controlling discovery.” Jones v. City of Elkhart, 737 F.3d 1107, 1115 (7th Cir. 2013).

A. Interrogatory No. 1

To start, Kia requests a complete response to ROG No. 1 for all “LKQ products” that LKQ sells for the vehicles at issue. Specifically, ROG No. 1 seeks:

For the period from January 1, 2015 to the present, identify by manufacturer, trademark, product name, part number, model number, LKQ’s internal designations, and any other applicable designation, each of LKQ’s Products that has, in whole or in part, been: (i) made in the United States by or for LKQ, (ii) used by or for LKQ in the United States, (iii) offered for sale by or for LKQ in the United States, (iv) sold by or for LKQ in the United States, or (v) imported into the United States by or for LKQ, and identify three persons associated with LKQ having the most knowledge of the subject matter of this Interrogatory.

Doc. 219-2 at 6-7. In this case, Kia defined LKQ’s Products to mean “all of LKQ’s headlamps or taillamps, manufactured, sold, offered for sale, or imported into the United States by or on behalf of LKQ that are sold or designed for the Kia-branded vehicles, whose vehicle model names and model years are listed in the following table[.]” See Doc. 220-7 at 6. The parties’ dispute centers whether the response Kia seeks implicates information relevant to this litigation, and further whether non-asserted or non-accused patents are outside the scope of relevant information.1

1 LKQ’s objections to ROG No. 1 and RFP No. 4 contain a host of general and boilerplate objections. See Doc. 219-2 at 7-14; see also Doc. 220-2 at 9-10. However, LKQ’s response brief only includes specific substantive objects, which are properly before the Court and discussed in this Order. Accordingly, the Court considers LKQ’s unaddressed objections undeveloped arguments, which are waived. See John K. MacIver Inst. for Pub. Policy, Inc. v. Evers, 994 F.3d 602, 614 (7th Cir. 2021) (“A party who does not sufficiently develop an issue or argument forfeits it.”). Moreover, boilerplate objections are a disfavored and outdated practice, and should cease in all future discovery responses in this litigation. Kia claims that the information is relevant to whether LKQ infringes the Kia patents at issue. Relevance, particularly in the discovery phase, is a low bar to meet. According to the Federal Rules, evidence is relevant if it “has any tendency” to make a fact of consequence “more or less probable than it would be without the evidence.” Fed. R. Evid. 401(a)-(b). In patent cases, courts nationwide have taken two approaches for determining the relevancy of requests for discovery of non-asserted or non-accused products. Compare 7 Annotated Patent Digest § 41:17.60 (collecting cases denying discovery on non-accused instrumentalities), with 7 Annotated Patent Digest § 41:17.50 (collecting cases granting discovery on reasonably similar products). Under the first view, discovery is limited to only those products specifically identified in the infringement contentions. See, e.g., Icon-IP Pty Ltd. v. Specialized Bicycle Components, Inc., 2014 WL 4593338, at *2-*4 (N.D. Cal. 2014) (denying motion to compel to produce discovery on unaccused models of its products and requiring patentee to amend its infringement contentions); Meidatek, Inc. v. Freescale Semiconductor, Inc., 2013 WL 588760, *2 & *4 (N.D. Cal. 2013) (denying motion to compel discovery on products that were not specifically identified in the infringement contentions).

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LKQ Corporation v. Kia America, Inc., (N.D. Ill. 2023).

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