by Patrick Cleary, Bowman and Brook, LLP
Ensuring cases are decided on the merits rather than discovery disputes is a challenge facing all North Carolina defense attorneys. And there is little guidance from the North Carolina courts about the proper scope of discovery. The North Carolina Supreme Court recently indicated its willingness to evaluate this issue.
On December 12, 2025, the North Carolina Supreme Court granted Toyota’s petition for discretionary review in the Sessoms v. Toyota Motor Corporation, et al. case (Robeson County, 21CVS3104). The petition for discretionary review arose from the trial court’s orders finding Toyota committed multiple discovery violations and imposing case-deciding sanctions against Toyota. While the North Carolina Court of Appeals panel vacated the sanctions order, it affirmed the trial court’s findings that Toyota committed discovery violations and invited the trial court to reimpose sanctions. NCADA, through its amici committee, filed an amici brief in support, which was written by Chris Kiger of Smith Anderson. NCADA’s brief focused on the proper procedure for defendants to respond to overly broad and objectionable corporate witness representative deposition notices. In addition to NCADA, the Product Liability Advisory Council (PLAC) and the US and NC Chambers of Commerce also filed amici briefs in support.
The Sessoms case arose from a two-vehicle crash. On July 12, 2021, Matthew Sessoms, who had just graduated from high school, was driving his 2013 Scion FR-S (two door sports car) on a rural road near Cerro Gordo in Columbus County. A 70,000-pound Mack Truck, driven by an NC DOT employee drove through a stop sign and onto the driver’s side of the Scion. The truck’s front bumper assembly (designed for snowplow attachment) pushed through the windshield and onto the steering column. Mr Sessoms was entrapped under the truck’s bumper and was declared deceased at the scene.
Plaintiff filed suit against four individual DOT employees, the used car dealership that sold Sessoms the Scion, and Toyota and Subaru (the Scion was the product of a joint venture of Toyota and Subaru). The claims against Toyota alleged the Scion was defectively designed, that Toyota knew the Scion was defectively designed, and that Toyota withheld this knowledge from the public. Their causes of action sounded in product liability, breach of warranty, and unfair and deceptive trade acts.
During the case, Toyota and Subaru responded to extensive and wide-ranging discovery, and produced corporate witnesses for deposition. The corporate witness depositions contained over 40 topics and 40 separate requests for production of documents. After the corporate witness depositions, plaintiff’s counsel filed a motion to compel, claiming Toyota committed multiple discovery violations. The trial court granted plaintiff’s motion and adopted their proposed order without change. The discovery order imposed wide-ranging obligations on Toyota, including having to create translations of any document produced in discovery (even if only maintained in Japanese), produce corporate witnesses for deposition in Robeson County, and waiving objections to discovery responses and corporate witness deposition notices.
Toyota worked diligently to comply with the discovery order, but plaintiff’s counsel then filed a motion to compel/motion for sanctions. Again, the trial court granted plaintiff’s motion and adopted their proposed order without change. The sanctions order held the Scion was defectively designed, that Toyota knew the Scion was defectively designed, that Toyota withheld this knowledge from the public, and Toyota engaged in unfair trade practices. The trial court also struck many of Toyota’s statutorily based affirmative defenses.
Toyota appealed the discovery order and the sanctions order to the North Carolina Court of Appeals. On December 31, 2024, the Court of Appeals (COA 24-265, 910 S.E.2d 395) held that Toyota was not required to create translations for Japanese language documents and vacated the sanctions on that basis. But the Court of Appeals affirmed the discovery order and held “[we] remand the matter to the trial court to reconsider its Sanctions Order by exercising its discretion in fashioning an appropriate sanction, if it still deems sanctions to be appropriate.”
The petition for discretionary review followed and was filed in early February 2025.
