Higher Court overturns over-broad discovery into competitor's trade secrets

Control Room Technologies, LLC sued Waypoint Fiber Networks in a Declaratory Judgment action in Ingham County Circuit Court, arguing that it was not obligated to comply with the Defendant's demands for access to the Lansing Fiber Ring.  The Defendants filed Interrogatories which included several that the higher court deemed "irrelevant and excessive."  It overturned the lower court's order allowing this discovery, finding that the Plaintiff was not required to turn over customer lists to the Defendants in a search for potential customers.

The Court also deemed it prejudical to grant the defendants access to "all of the plaintiffs' company organizational and poilicy information in its entirety, including but not limited to organizational charts, corporate policy  and procedure manuals, polkicy memoranda, e-mail retention policies, and all other items. Not surprisingly, the high court deemed this request "overbroad" and the information sought to be irrelevant, proprietary and confidential.

The higher court also criticized the lower court's over-broad order requiring the Plaintiff to turn over "the plaintiffs' principal's computer and any officer computers or laptops that he used."