Judge Weill says Eaton had ‘blatant disregard’ for producing documents to Mississippi court
Weill — echoing words that a previous judge used when throwing out Eaton’s $1 billion lawsuit against competitor Frisby Aerospace and six Frisby engineers in December 2010 — said that Eaton’s “fraud upon the court” has not gone away.
His order this week came in response to a recent report by a special master who was asked by the judge to review emails, billing statements and other documents from Eaton. Weill said Eaton has to produce more records by the end of September.
Weill is overseeing a Frisby counterclaim that remained before the court after his predecessor dismissed Eaton’s lawsuit. The counterclaim says Eaton’s lawsuit was meant to prevent Frisby from landing a lucrative contract to supply hydraulic pumps and motors to the Boeing Dreamliner aircraft. Eaton denied that was the case.
Eaton officials did not return calls Thursday.
In a court motion in early August, Eaton stressed its assertion that a group of engineers took 16,000 pages of trade secrets and other privileged data from Eaton Aerospace in Jackson, Miss., and brought the information with them to new jobs at a plant outside Winston-Salem, N.C., owned by Frisby, now renamed Triumph Actuation Systems.
Weill said the court’s request for more Eaton records in May and June resulted in a disorganized “logistical nightmare” of 15,000 pages. Some of the records touched on Eaton’s use of a powerful one-time Hinds County district attorney, Ed Peters, to influence the initial judge in Eaton’s lawsuit, Bobby DeLaughter, Weill said.
Cleveland Plain Dealer
9/21/12
hattip MS Litigation Review
Magnolia Tribune
