Gabehart calls on court to reject Gibbs's latest 'desperate' motion

Chris Gabehart believes the Western District of North Carolina should deny Joe Gibbs Racing’s second expedited discovery request, since it has already addressed the issues presented.

“JGR’s litigation strategy – file motion after motion, accuse first and ask questions later – cannot manufacture evidence of disclosure of confidential JGR information where none exists,” the response filed Wednesday by Gabehart said. “JGR is clearly desperate. It has yet to identify a single verified instance in which Mr. Gabehart transmitted, disclosed, or used any JGR Confidential Information… The only documents JGR has been able to point to are personal to Mr. Gabehart and cannot seriously be said to qualify as ‘Confidential Information’ or trade secrets – a high-level business plan and a basic scorecard form used to compile widely-disseminated race information and (race) notes. 

“JGR’s latest Motion is yet another attempt to paper over this fundamental shortfall with volume rather than substance.”

In its motion filed April 2 for additional discovery, Joe Gibbs Racing stated that it had become aware of deleted text messages between Gabehart and Spire Motorsports co-owner Jeff Dickerson. Gabehart has responded that he voluntarily and transparently disclosed the deletion of those messages in response to the expedited discovery order.

Gabehart remains adamant that he did not share any information with a third party. Spire Motorsports, also a defendant in the case, has been adamant that it has no Gibbs information and does not want any.

To Gibbs, the deletion of the text messages indicates the concealment of their information. However, it remains unknown what the messages actually were, and work is currently underway to recover them. Gabehart has consented to a subpoena of his phone carrier and has already made his own request to try to recover the text messages.

“For the Court to assume that Mr. Gabehart deleted his texts with Mr. Dickerson to conceal something harmful, there would need to be some evidentiary basis to connect Mr. Dickerson to a claim against Mr. Gabehart,” the Wednesday response from Gabehart said. “No such evidentiary nexus exists. Instead, JGR relies on exaggerated labels and rank speculation.”

Gibbs is also seeking to subpoena individuals from other race teams who, it claims, spoke with Dickerson about the stolen information. Additionally, they want a forensic examination of Dickerson’s electronic devices. 

But “this is not ‘narrowly tailored’ discovery,” said the Gabehart response. “It is a fishing expedition dressed up as urgency.” Furthermore, regarding the subpoenas, that Gabehart said that request should be denied because “the Court has already addressed and rejected a prior identical request from JGR, and JGR offers no new information to justify this extraordinary second request.” 

It goes on to say, “Initially, JGR cited ‘garage chatter’ as a basis for expedited third-party discovery. Now, having apparently abandoned that unsubstantiated rationale, JGR continues to speculate that Mr. Dickerson ‘may have communicated with these individuals concerning Spire’s possession of JGR’s Confidential Information and Trade Secrets.’ Anyone can speculate about anything – but that is obviously not a legitimate basis for expedited discovery.” 

If the Court does grant any expedited third-party discovery, then Gabehart would like it to be reciprocal, as a previous ruling ordered. In doing so, Gabehart would seek the discovery of the cell phones of Heather Gibbs, Eric Shaeffer, Dave Alpern, and Toni Rogers.