UMC Electronics Co. v. United States

4 Cl. Ct. 97, 1983 U.S. Claims LEXIS 1538
CourtUnited States Court of Claims
DecidedDecember 16, 1983
DocketNo. 335-80C
StatusPublished

This text of 4 Cl. Ct. 97 (UMC Electronics Co. v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Court of Claims primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
UMC Electronics Co. v. United States, 4 Cl. Ct. 97, 1983 U.S. Claims LEXIS 1538 (cc 1983).

Opinion

ORDER

COLAIANNI, Judge.

Plaintiff on November 8, 1983, filed a motion to supplement the record by receipt in evidence of Exhibits 68, 69 and 70. Plaintiff contends that the defendant’s response to paragraph 5(o) of the amended patent that it had not procured over 5,000 accused aircraft counting accelerometers (ACAs) from the Systron-Donner Corporation (SDC) since 1970 was “untruthful.” Plaintiff urges that defendant’s denial of having procured over 5,000 ACAs from SDC can be demonstrably proven to be false by the defendant’s previous answers and supplemental answers to plaintiff’s third and fourth set of interrogatories. Thus, plaintiff argues that its motion should be allowed or, in the alternative, that defendant be required to truthfully answer paragraph 5(o) of plaintiff’s amended petition.

While defendant’s opposition to the motion is mainly grounded on the disadvantage it would experience if the exhibits are received and used by plaintiff to argue commercial success of its patented invention, defendant also halfheartedly1 argues that its answer to the amended petition is correct if procurement is interpreted to refer to the date it ordered the ACAs, rather than the date on which they were delivered. Defendant also opposes the motion because during trial it was precluded from soliciting testimony that could have been used to rebut plaintiff’s claim of commercial .success. Finally, in response to plaintiff’s alternative request that defendant be required to truthfully respond to the amended petition, defendant states:

[PJlaintiff alternatively requests that defendant be required to “truthfully” answer paragraph 5(o) of Plaintiff’s FIRST AMENDED PETITION. While defendant has no objection to amending its answer to this allegation in the event an accounting is necessary and its answer is determined to be incorrect, plaintiff has shown no reason why such an amendment should be required now — prior to a decision on liability. One purpose of bifurca-, tion is to defer often-ehcountered disputes over the amount of procurement until after liability has been established. To amend its answer to this allegation at this time would serve no useful purpose.2 [Footnote omitted.]

Plaintiff, in its response of November 25, concedes that the proffered exhibits would be used to argue that the commercial success that its invention has experienced is evidence of the nonobviousness of its patent.

With regard to the defendant’s argument that it would be disadvantaged if the documents attached to plaintiff’s motion were received into evidence, plaintiff states:

While Plaintiff’s attorney has been inadvertent in not previously noticing, and offering Exhibit PX-68, 69, and 70, this does not excuse the untruthfulness of Defendant in its answer to Paragraph 5(o) of the petition.
While this is an adversary proceeding, it is submitted that one’s Government has , an uncomprising (yet often ignored) duty of truth to its constituents, and the Government should not be allowed to hide behind suppositions.
[99]*99Defendant is in no way prejudiced by Plaintiff’s requested supplement to the record in adding PX68, 69, and 70 or, in the alternative, giving a true answer to Paragraph 5(o) of the petition.

In order to enable counsel to respond to questions generated by the plaintiff’s motion and to also give the parties an opportunity to submit additional arguments, a conference was held on December 14, 1983.

Counsel for plaintiff indicated that he would rely on the arguments set forth in his motion. He did, nonetheless, explain that the motion at bar was required because he had misread defendant’s answer to paragraph 5(o), and had thought that defendant had admitted to procuring over 5,000 ACAs. Counsel for defendant, in response to the incorrectness of its answer to the allegation contained in paragraph 5(o) of plaintiff’s amended petition, pointed out that the Air Force procurement, which is referred to in proposed Exhibit 70, was not received until February 9, 1983. Since this is after defendant’s January 26,1983, answer to plaintiff’s amended petition, defendant contends that counsel, while preparing its answer, may not have been aware of the Air Force procurement. Counsel for defendant also indicated that he was unaware of any duty or responsibility to correct an incorrect answer to a pleading after the true facts became known.

Discussion

Plaintiff’s motion brings into focus on the one hand the serious concern of the court that answers and responses by the parties to pleadings, discovery and pretrial orders be accurate and reliable, and, on the other hand, the court's additional concern that the parties be held accountable for their answers so that a case can be prosecuted in an expeditious and orderly fashion. There is little doubt that plaintiff seeks to belatedly move the exhibits into evidence to establish the commercial success of its invention. This is so even though commercial success was not identified in plaintiff’s answer to the court’s standard pretrial order on liability as a material matter of fact as to which it believed the parties were in agreement or as an issue that it intended to establish at trial. Perhaps in recognition of this deficiency plaintiff raises the “untruthfulness” of defendant’s answer to its interrogatories as the basis for this motion. The two are unrelated. Defendant’s alleged “untruthfulness” has nothing to do with plaintiff’s responsibility to adequately and completely identify the matters as to which the parties are in agreement, the issues dividing the parties, and the documents it intends to rely upon at trial in response to the court’s pretrial order.3

Defendant, on the other hand, in order to shift the focus from its obligation to accurately and fairly answer all allegations in plaintiff’s amended petition, concentrates on plaintiff’s failure to identify “commercial success” as an issue or a nonissue in its pretrial statement and the disadvantage which would result if the court should accept plaintiff’s exhibits at this late date.4

Defendant’s contention, in opposition to plaintiff’s motion, that it was prevented from soliciting testimony that would be useful in rebutting plaintiff’s commercial success can be quickly disposed of. As the [100]*100transcript attached to defendant’s opposition indicates, defendant did not indicate that the testimony would be useful to rebut plaintiff’s commercial success allegation.5 In fact, when asked why the testimony at issue was relevant to any of the matters before the court, defendant merely stated that the testimony was necessary to explain “how the patented structure performed and * * * the amount of wires that were required for that [the patented structure] as well as the performance of the SystronDonner indicator and how many wires were required for that.”

Defendant’s argument that its answer to plaintiff’s amended petition would be accurate if “procured” were interpreted to mean “ordered” rather than “delivered” is disingenuous. This court has on a number of different occasions clearly indicated that the delivery date of devices to the government is the controlling fact. A good example is Tektronix, Inc. v. United States, 216 Ct.Cl. 144, 152-53, 575 F.2d 832

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4 Cl. Ct. 97, 1983 U.S. Claims LEXIS 1538, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/umc-electronics-co-v-united-states-cc-1983.