Though the Second Circuit Court has ordered a preliminary injunction temporarily halting enforcement of Public Act 13-67—An Act Concerning Automotive Glass Work—the dispute over the subpoenas sent by Safelite continues to play out as the Connecticut Attorney General could decide to appeal the Circuit Court’s decision to the State Supreme Court. LYNX Services was served by Safelite and responded by asking the U.S. District Court for Western Pennsylvania to quash the subpoena. Safelite has responded in opposition.
“LYNX bases its motion to quash on two assertions, neither of which excuses its obligation to comply with Safelite’s subpoena,” Safelite’s attorneys claim. “First, LYNX claims that the subpoena imposes an undue burden, an argument that rests entirely on LYNX’s argument that the requested documents are not relevant to the underlying lawsuit, but in making that argument, LYNX improperly conflates the question of whether the statute at issue in the litigation applies to LYNX with the question of whether the requested documents are relevant to Safelite’s claims. LYNX is correct that the statute does not apply to it, but that is precisely why the requested documents are relevant to Safelite’s First Amendment claim. As Safelite has argued, the statute does not advance the state’s own purported interest in ‘protecting consumer choice,’ as it must under applicable law, because it does not apply to companies, like LYNX, that may be subject to conflicts of interest of the sort that the state claims justify the law’s speech restrictions. And the six limited requests in the subpoena seek documents directly relevant to that argument.
“Second, LYNX claims that the subpoena seeks confidential and proprietary business information. But LYNX completely ignores the fact that there is a protective order in place in the underlying litigation that would prohibit LYNX’s proprietary information from being used for any purpose other than in the underlying litigation. Indeed, LYNX rejected Safelite’s offer to discuss ways to reduce LYNX’s confidentiality concerns and chose to pursue this motion instead. Because the requested documents are relevant to the underlying lawsuits and the protective order mitigates all of LYNX’s confidentiality concerns, LYNX cannot demonstrate, as it must, that the requested documents fall outside of the expansive definition of relevant evidence in Rule 26. Accordingly, the motion to quash should be denied.”
An oral argument over the phone is schedule for both parties before Judge Mark R. Hornak on September 19, 2014.
To read Safelite’s opposition to LYNX’s motion to quash, click here.
