Lawsuit Families Given Access to Cooper Files

Legal proceedings against Cooper Tire in the US have, in the manufacturer’s opinion, the potential to compromise the company’s trade secrets. The plaintiffs arguing that a Cooper tyre contributed to a fatal 2005 van accident have been granted wide access to documents belonging to Cooper Tire & Rubber. This court decision, reported in the Salt Lake Tribune, has been described as “breathtaking” by Cooper. A company lawyer wrote in an affidavit that the scope of the search the plaintiffs will be permitted to carry out is “broader than has ever been applied to Cooper in any product-liability lawsuit.”

The families of those killed and injured in the accident believe the van’s tyre failed due to systemic design and manufacturing failures, therefore a broad search of Cooper’s information is justified. However Cooper disagrees, and believes the search should be restricted to information about tyres similar to the one that failed and manufactured at a similar date – otherwise it could be forced to reveal sensitive trade information.

Cooper has requested the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals dismiss the discovery order, claiming it would take a dozen lawyers ten weeks and almost one and a half million dollars to sort through as many as 1.5 million documents to find those relevant to the case at hand. A spokeswoman for Cooper says this request has been made purely as the company wishes to protect its legitimate commercial and trade secrets.