RF MICRO DEVICES, INC. v. XIANG et al
Filing
211
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER signed by CHIEF JUDGE WILLIAM L. OSTEEN, JR on 06/08/2016. For the reasons stated herein, Plaintiff's Motion for Reconsideration of Protective Order (Doc. 189 ) is DENIED.(Taylor, Abby)
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE MIDDLE DISTRICT OF NORTH CAROLINA
RF MICRO DEVICES, INC.,
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Plaintiff,
v.
JIMMY S. XIANG, XIAOHANG DU,
FENG WANG, and VANCHIP
TECHNOLOGIES LTD.,
Defendants.
1:12CV967
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
OSTEEN, JR., District Judge
Presently before this court is a Motion for Reconsideration
of Protective Order filed by Plaintiff RF Micro Devices, Inc.
(“Plaintiff”). (Doc. 189.)
Defendants have responded, (Doc.
199), and Plaintiff has replied. (Doc. 204.)
This issue is now
ripe for resolution, and for the reasons stated herein,
Plaintiff’s motion will be denied.
I.
BACKGROUND
This motion arises out of this court’s entry of a
Protective Order on December 10, 2015. (See Dec. 10, 2015
Protective Order (Doc. 180).)
The Protective Order provides
that any discovery produced by a party that is marked as
“Confidential Information” may only be used “in connection with
the instant action and any appeal.” (Id. ¶ 5.) This language was
adopted over the objection of Plaintiff, who had requested that
it be allowed to use such information in the related litigation
that is currently proceeding in China. (See Pl.’s Br. in Supp.
of Mot. for Reconsideration of Protective Order (“Pl.’s Br.”)
(Doc. 190) at 2.)
This is not the first time this issue has arisen in this
litigation. Prior to the opening of discovery, this court denied
Plaintiff’s Motion to Take Limited Expedited Discovery for Use
in a Foreign Proceeding, which sought to obtain certain emails
preserved by Defendants’ internet service providers (“ISPs”) for
use in the litigation in China. (See Order (Doc. 62).)
Discovery in this case opened on November 15, 2013, and the
issue of whether discovery obtained in this case should be
provided to the Chinese court was again briefed during the first
motions for a Protective Order. (See, e.g., Docs. 86, 92, 99,
101, 103, 104.) Before this court could enter an order,
discovery in the case was stayed upon intervention of the United
States. (See Temporary Stay Order (Doc. 143).) That stay was
lifted on December 10, 2015, and this court entered a Protective
Order on the same day. (See Order (Doc. 179); Dec. 10, 2015
Protective Order (Doc. 180).) Plaintiff now requests that this
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court reconsider the Protective Order and allow Plaintiff to
present evidence obtained in this case to the Chinese court.
II.
ANALYSIS
Although they do not limit this court’s discretion, courts
in the Fourth Circuit have routinely looked to the standards
governing the reconsideration of final judgments under Rule
59(e) in considering a motion for reconsideration of an
interlocutory order under Rule 54(b). See Volumetrics Med.
Imaging, LLC, v. Toshiba Am. Med. Sys., No. 1:05CV955, 2011 WL
6934696, at *2 (M.D.N.C. Dec. 30, 2011). A motion for
reconsideration under Rule 54(b) is “appropriately granted only
in narrow circumstances: (1) the discovery of new evidence, (2)
an intervening development or change in the controlling law, or
(3) the need to correct a clear error or prevent manifest
injustice.” Pender v. Bank of Am. Corp., No. 3:05-CV-238-MU,
2011 WL 62115, at *1 (W.D.N.C. Jan. 7, 2011). On the other hand,
a motion to reconsider is improper where “it only asks the Court
to rethink its prior decision, or presents a better or more
compelling argument than the party could have presented in the
original briefs on the matter.”
Hinton v. Henderson, No.
3:10cv505, 2011 WL 2142799, at *1 (W.D.N.C. May 31, 2011)
(internal citations and quotations omitted), see also Directv,
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Inc. v. Hart, 366 F. Supp. 2d 315, 317 (E.D.N.C. 2004) (holding
that a motion to reconsider is not proper when it “merely asks
the court to rethink what the Court had already thought through
— rightly or wrongly” (internal citations and quotations
omitted)).
Here, Plaintiff has presented what it styles as new
evidence in the form of a declaration from a former Chinese
Judge, as well as arguments both that it will suffer prejudice
if it is not allowed to present evidence from this case to the
Chinese court, and that caselaw supports that the decision of
whether to accept this evidence should be made by the Chinese
court. (See Pl.’s Br. (Doc. 190) at 4-8; Pl.’s Br., Ex. B, Decl.
of Guangwei Wang (Doc. 190-2).)
In this case, Plaintiff has not produced “new evidence that
could not have been obtained through the exercise of due
diligence,” nor shown that the Court “obviously misapprehended
[its] position or the facts or applicable law.” United States v.
Duke Energy Corp., 218 F.R.D. 468, 474 (M.D.N.C. 2003). Rather,
Plaintiff essentially attempts to present a “better or more
compelling argument” in favor of its position, which courts
routinely hold to be inadequate on a motion for reconsideration.
Hinton, 2011 WL 2142799, at *1.
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First, the declaration that Plaintiff has submitted in
support of the instant motion is no different in substance from
the declarations it has previously submitted to this court on
the same subject, and does not constitute “new evidence.” (See
Pl.’s Br. in Supp. of Mot. to Take Limited Expedited Discovery
for Use in a Foreign Proceeding, Ex. A, Decl. of Benjamin Bai
(Doc. 47-1) ¶ 11 (“Evidence obtained outside of China is
admissible in Chinese courts.”); Pl.’s Br. in Supp. of Mot. to
Submit Declaration of Wei He as Sur-Reply, Ex. A, Decl. of Wei
He (Doc. 103-1) ¶ 4 (“[E]xtraterritorial evidence is legitimate
evidence that is widely accepted by Chinese courts.”).)
This
declaration is not “new or previously unobtainable, but merely
newly submitted.”
Duke Energy, 218 F.R.D. at 474.
While the
new declaration is from a former judge, rather than an attorney,
it contains no real new information from the previous
declarations filed by Plaintiff, and is thus insufficient to
cause this court to reconsider its previous ruling.
Second, there has been no cited change in the applicable
law. Plaintiff’s cited support for its argument that this court
should allow the Chinese court to decide whether it wishes to
accept any evidence have previously been presented to this court
and rejected. (See, e.g., Order (Doc. 62) at 7-8.)
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This court
also rejected a similar argument in entering the Protective
Order on December 10, 2015. (See Dec. 10, 2015 Protective Order
(Doc. 180).)
The reiteration of arguments that have previously
been rejected is of little weight in this context, and are not
persuasive on a motion for reconsideration.
Finally, there will be no manifest injustice done. In the
context of a motion for reconsideration, manifest injustice is
defined as “an error by the court that is ‘direct, obvious, and
observable.’” Register v. Cameron & Barkley Co., 481 F. Supp. 2d
479, 480 n.1 (D.S.C. 2007) (quoting In re Oak Park Calabasas
Condominium Ass’n, 302 B.R. 682 (Bankr. C.D. Cal. 2003)).
Plaintiff points to no observable or obvious error by this
court, but rather argues that it will be “severely prejudiced”
by the ruling, because the Chinese court is the only tribunal
with the power to impact the Defendants currently residing in
China. Again, these are the same arguments that have been voiced
by Plaintiff in multiple previous motions. They do not show that
this court misunderstood Plaintiff’s arguments, only that it
disagreed with them. As such, they do not justify
reconsideration of the Protective Order.
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III. CONCLUSION
For the reasons stated herein, Plaintiff’s Motion for
Reconsideration of Protective Order (Doc. 189) is DENIED.
This the 8th day of June, 2016.
_______________________________________
United States District Judge
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