Reasonable Efforts to Confer are More than Short Emails
Things continue to happen in the world. Here is one: U.S. v. Great Neck Saw Manufacturers (18-144) This is one of the rare discovery disputes that produced a written opinion from the Court of International Trade. The underlying case involves an effort to collect a $1 million penalty on approximately $307 thousand in unpaid duties. As per the usual course of action, the government served on defendant requests for production, interrogatories, and requests to admit. Citing the large number of entries, GNSM requested an extension to respond. Five days after the extended period, GNSM provided a response that did not address the entire request. In the response, GNSM noted the difficulty of gathering the information on approximately 6500 entry lines, the need for client confirmation, and its inability to produce some information. Four weeks later, the government inquired as to the status of the remaining request. After some additional production and additional expressions of effort by th