Glock Says US ‘Stonewalling’ Discovery With ‘Frivolous’ Objections, Providing Little Info

The government has “inexcusably failed to provide substantive responses and/or produce any documents whatsoever,” gun manufacturer Glock said in a June 20 motion asking the Court of International Trade to compel the U.S. to produce the information the importer sought in its first round of discovery (Glock v. U.S., CIT # 23-00046).

It also asked the trade court to strike all the government’s objections, claiming that the U.S. had admitted each of Glock’s requests submitted in its first set of requests for admission “for failure to provide sufficient answers” and the importer’s first interrogatories by not responding in time.

Accusing the government of “stonewalling” discovery “in par with its pre-litigation practices,” Glock said the U.S.’s responses “are littered with boilerplate, baseless and improper objections, replete with evasive commentary, fail to provide substantive information, and [are] devoid of any document production whatsoever.”

It noted that the government had missed its deadline to answer Glock’s interrogatories, for which Glock granted an extension under the condition that the U.S. not object to any of them. But it later did, the importer pointed out.

The government also objected to all of Glock’s requests for admission except one, arguing that each was “improper, as it is a pure legal conclusion or legal issue” and “does not involve the application of the law to fact or facts,” the importer said. But, legally, admission requests may be made for “facts, the application of the law to the facts, or opinions about either,” it said.

Regarding admissions requests, the government also “shockingly” claimed that the admission requests were improper because they didn’t “specifically reference information contained in a document or deposition that took place in discovery,” it said. It said the U.S. “has provided no legal authority for this novel position.”

“Defendant’s frivolous objections and deficient responses to the RFAs reflect its complete disdain for Glock’s entitlement to discovery and frustrates a critical purpose and proper use of Requests for Admissions,” it said.

The government also responded to “numerous” requests for production by saying that the information sought was available to Glock or the public, which was only an assumption, Glock said. Even if that was true, that didn’t mean the U.S. was exempted from providing the information itself, it said.

The US. objected to “numerous” other requests because it claimed they weren’t relevant, though they clearly were, Glock said. And, in response to still others, it said it was still looking for responsive documents without providing a timeline, the importer said. It also wrongly contested several asking for email communications from eight CBP personnel for lack of proportionality to the needs of the case, it said.

Glock’s overall case claims that CBP failed to deduct the gun manufacturer’s royalty payments from its imports’ value calculation when liquidating a 2021 entry of pistol parts (see 2401170041).

“Despite the simplicity of the issues and Glock’s long term open book and collegial engagement with CBP for well over six years, Defendant remains insistent on making this matter as time consuming, burdensome, and difficult as possible,” it said.