American Airlines Inc v. Travelport Limited et al

Filing 233

REPLY filed by American Airlines Inc re: #211 MOTION American Airlines, Inc's Opposed Motion to File Supplemental Brief in Support of its Motion to Extend Scheduling Order Deadlines (Garcia, Yolanda)

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS
FORT WORTH DIVISION
AMERICAN AIRLINES, INC.
vs.
TRAVELPORT LIMITED, et al.

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CIVIL ACTION NO. 4:11-CV-244-Y

AMERICAN AIRLINES, INC.’S REPLY BRIEF IN SUPPORT OF ITS MOTION TO
FILE A SUPPLEMENTAL BRIEF IN SUPPORT OF ITS
MOTION TO EXTEND SCHEDULING ORDER DEADLINES
American Airlines, Inc. (“American”) submits this reply in support of its Motion
to File a Supplemental Brief in Support of its Motion to Extend Scheduling Order Deadlines
(“Motion to Extend”).
On February 2, 2012, American sought permission to file a supplemental brief
that was slightly longer than one page, the purpose of which was merely to inform the Court that
Travelport had just subpoenaed forty third parties and served American with significant new
document requests. The information in American’s supplemental brief was clearly relevant to
this Court’s determination of whether to extend the current discovery deadlines. In response,
Travelport has filed a brief that goes well beyond responding to American’s brief submission
and, consistent with Travelport’s standard practice in this case, is replete with vituperative
accusations. Because Travelport’s brief contains significant inaccuracies, American is
constrained to respond briefly. We regret the extensive briefing with respect to this matter,
which should have been easily resolved by agreement among the parties without the need to
involve the Court.1

1

Travelport’s vehement opposition to the request for a five-month extension, which American believes is plainly
appropriate given the preliminary stage of discovery and the pleadings, is consistent with the overly-litigious
approach that Travelport has taken throughout this case, including by repeatedly refusing to requests for normal

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First, Travelport claims that it has not significantly expanded the scope of
discovery by serving new document requests on forty non-parties. In fact, fifteen of the
subpoenas were served on non-parties that had not been subpoenaed in this litigation by
American. American sought discovery from most of the others more than six months ago, and
they have already produced documents. With these recently-issued subpoenas, Travelport seeks
a significant amount of new documents from these same non-parties, having served between nine
and thirty-one individual document requests depending on the non-party. These subpoenas will
require the parties to review potentially tens of thousands or more new documents that likely will
be produced well after the end of the current document discovery period, which ends on March
1. This fact alone demonstrates that the current discovery deadlines are simply not feasible.
Second, Travelport continues to allege that American is “dragging its feet” during
discovery, while ignoring that Travelport’s own document production obligations are far from
complete. American has informed Travelport that it is willing to appear for a 30(b)(6) deposition
on the date that Travelport chose. American simply requested that the parties first reach an
agreement with respect to coordinating the many depositions that need to take place. Travelport
has refused. Moreover, Travelport still has not agreed to produce from a significant number of
custodians whom American believes have relevant documents. Further, on February 10, 2012,
Travelport produced to American more than 70,000 additional pages of documents, and
Travelport still has not committed to an end date for its ongoing document production in
response to American’s First, Second, and Third Request for Production. In addition, Orbitz did
accommodations and seeking to foment, rather than consensually resolve, procedural disputes as mandated by Dondi
Properties Corp. v. Commerce Savs. & Loan Ass’n, 121 F.R.D.284 (N.D. Tex. 1988). For instance, Travelport
refused to grant American’s request for a modest extension of time to respond to voluminous requests for
admissions served by Travelport, forcing American to file a motion for protection, and Travelport backed out of an
agreement to jointly seek a status conference.

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not begin producing documents until February 10, 2012, more than seven months after Orbitz
was first served with document requests, and only after American filed a motion to compel.
Then, Orbitz produced only approximately 4,000 documents. Orbitz recognized that its
production was incomplete, but it would not commit to an end date for its initial document
production. Moreover, on February 14, 2012, Sabre produced more than 300,000 pages of
additional documents. In short, American served both Travelport and Orbitz with document
requests on July 5, 2011 and it is not even clear when they will complete producing documents in
response to this request; yet, Travelport claims that American is dragging its feet for commercial
advantage. Based on the uncertain state of party document production, the current March 1
deadline is not feasible. As a result, American has requested that the current case deadlines be
extended by five months.
Finally, Travelport continues to argue that extending the deadlines provides
American with some business advantage. This argument is wrong. American is prosecuting this
case to stop the anticompetitive conduct of Travelport and its co-defendants. As the Declaration
of Derek Decross makes clear, American has no intention to be “dark” in any of the GDSs, and
would suffer catastrophic financial consequences if its flights were not present in Travelport’s
GDSs. Even after submitting additional briefing, Travelport puts forward no declaration from
any of its employees that Travelport would be harmed by a brief extension of the current
deadlines. American seeks a modest extension because the current deadlines are simply
unworkable given the current posture of the case.

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DATED: February 16, 2012
Respectfully submitted,
s/ Yolanda C. Garcia
Yolanda C. Garcia
State Bar No. 24012457
[e-mail]
Michelle Hartmann
State Bar No. 24032401
[e-mail]
WEIL, GOTSHAL & MANGES LLP
200 Crescent Court, Suite 300
Dallas, Texas 75201-6950
214.746.7700
214.746.7777 (fax)
R. Paul Yetter
State Bar No. 22154200
[e-mail]
Anna Rotman
State Bar No. 24046761
[e-mail]
YETTER COLEMAN LLP
909 Fannin, Suite 3600
Houston, Texas 77010
713.632.8000
713.632.8002 (fax)
Bill Bogle
State Bar No. 02561000
[e-mail]
Roland K. Johnson
State Bar No. 00000084
[e-mail]
HARRIS, FINLEY & BOGLE, P.C.
777 Main Street, Suite 3600
Fort Worth, Texas 76102
817.870.8700
817.332.6121 (fax)
ATTORNEYS FOR PLAINTIFF AMERICAN
AIRLINES, INC.

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Of Counsel to Plaintiff:
Richard A. Rothman
[e-mail]
James W. Quinn
[e-mail]
WEIL, GOTSHAL & MANGES LLP
767 Fifth Avenue
New York, New York 10153
212.310.8426
212.310.8285 (fax)
M.J. Moltenbrey
[e-mail]
DEWEY & LEBOEUF LLP
1101 New York Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005
202.346.8738
202.346.8102 (fax)
CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE
I hereby certify that all counsel of record who are deemed to have consented to
electronic service are being served with a copy of the foregoing document via the Court’s
CM/ECF system pursuant to the Court’s Local Rule 5.1(d) this 16th day of February 2012.

s/ Robert S. Velevis
Robert S. Velevis

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