By Byron Kaye
SYDNEY, May 15 (Reuters) – A judge hearing an Australian class action lawsuit against Tesla on Friday questioned whether the Elon Musk-led automaker was taking the discovery process seriously and warned it could expect “a really bad time” if it failed to cooperate.
Federal Court judge Tom Thawley gave the warning after a lawyer representing 10,000 Australian Tesla drivers complained that the U.S.-listed car company had produced just 2,000 documents after an eight-month discovery process.
The lawsuit filed by Brisbane-based law firm JGA Saddler accuses Tesla of misleading Australian consumers about phantom braking, battery range and self-driving capability.
Tesla has said it does not mischaracterise its product.
At a pre-trial hearing, JGA Saddler lawyer Rebecca Jancauskas said the case required Tesla to provide documents concerning its engineering software, computer systems and complaints outside Australia, but the firm had so far received inadequate material.
“From what we’re getting, we can’t brief our experts,” Jancauskas told the court. “The paucity of discovery is what’s thrown a massive spanner in the works.”
Justice Thawley said it was reasonable to expect Tesla to produce detailed documents, adding that the carmaker had the right to request confidential or sensitive material be redacted.
“I find it gobsmacking that only 2,000 documents have been produced and I wonder whether the exercise has been treated seriously,” he said.
He added that he believed “one would need to get into engineering drawings and reports that had been made from others, and into investigations that may or may not have been undertaken.”
Tesla lawyer Imtiaz Ahmed said the defence had manually reviewed some 100,000 documents and was still to review another roughly 75,000. The carmaker was concerned about disclosing confidential and sensitive information, including names of individuals whom the applicants’ lawyers could approach, he added.
Thawley gave the carmaker until July 31 to wrap up its discovery, adding that “if it’s inadequate, you can expect a really bad time, and I will get into what’s gone on and whether it’s been done appropriately.”
He scheduled another case management hearing for September 1.
(Reporting by Byron Kaye; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)
