After hearing arguments from all parties during a telephonic hearing on Tuesday afternoon, the judge overseeing the Joe Gibbs Racing v Chris Gabehart and Spire Motorsports lawsuits has scheduled the trial to take place in January.
This is later than the November timeframe requested by the plaintiffs and earlier than the May timeline requested by the defendants.
From the order:
“The parties are directed to meet and confer and submit to the Court within 10 days a joint proposal as to pretrial deadlines as discussed. If the parties are unable to agree on any dates, the parties are directed to note such disagreement in their submission to the Court along with their respective proposed dates.”
‘As discussed’ isn’t yet public knowledge right now as a telephonic hearing listening line was not available to the media or interested parties on Tuesday. However, what this means is that Judge Susan C. Rodriguez is asking all three parties to get together and now agree on dates for everything that comes between now and the trial, should the parties not settle before January.
Joe Gibbs Racing wanted the soonest possible chance at discovery and then the trial because it feels as though damage is taking place right now in terms of the misappropriated trade secrets that Chris Gabehart had stored on personal devices after he departed his role as the team’s competition director and before taking the Chief Motorsports Officer at Spire.
Meanwhile, Spire felt the most expedited timeline was unduly burdensome as it would require depositions to take place during the season, one in which it is a contender for races and potentially the championship this summer and autumn.
Joe Gibbs Racing is seeking over $8 million in damages as a result of Gabehart’s misappropriation while also accusing Spire of tortuous interference with a non-compete provision it believes it still held over its longtime crew chief turned competition director.
Gabehart has argued that JGR broke its contractual obligations to him, and that there was no non-compete for the job he took with Spire. For its part, Spire has maintained that it has no reason to even be a defendant in this case as there is no evidence to date that it ever received trade secreted data nor does it want it due to its competition alliance with Hendrick Motorsports.
Meanwhile, Judge Rodriguez has granted and denied, in part, Joe Gibbs Racing’s motion for a second bout of expedited discovery. Keep in mind, this is a more urgent discovery that is occasionally granted before standard discovery as a matter of the potential for harm.
This is what Judge Rodriguez granted:
- Third party subpoena to Dickerson requesting production of all: (a) communications with Gabehart about employment or potential employment with Spire; (b) all documents referring to or referencing Gabehart’s employment or potential employment with Spire; (c) all documents or communications referring to or relating to JGR’s Confidential Information and Trade Secrets; and (d) all documents and data relating to activation and deactivation of autodelete features;
- Third-party subpoenas to Gabehart’s and Dickerson’s telephone providers requesting production of records reflecting Gabehart’s and Dickerson’s text messages and phone calls for the time period of October 1, 2025 through March 13, 2026;
- Court ordered forensic review of Dickerson’s cell phone(s), tablet(s) and computer(s) (collectively, “Devices”) to determine: (a) if text messages responsive to JGR’s Requests for Production of Documents to Gabehart are recoverable from those devices; and (b) when the autodelete function(s) on any of Dickerson’s Devices were activated.
This is what Judge Rodriguez denied:
- Requests for production of documents on Spire requesting production of all: (a) Dickerson’s communications with Gabehart about employment or potential employment with Spire; (b) all communications and documents referring to or referencing Gabehart’s employment or potential employment with Spire; (c) all communications with Gabehart referring to or relating to JGR’s Confidential Information and Trade Secrets; (d) all documents relating to document retention policies and activation and deactivation of autodelete features; and (e) all data indicating when the autodelete feature(s) were activated on Dickerson’s Devices;
- Third-party subpoenas to Joe Custer, Justin Marks, Todd Meredith, Rick Ware, and Tommy Baldwin for communications with Dickerson referencing or relating to JGR’s Confidential Information and Trade Secrets
In other words, Judge Rodriguez is granting the immediate pursuit of the deleted text message exchange between Gabehart and Spire co-owner Jeff Dickerson, something they both say they have also previously and unsuccessfully attempted to retrieve from their cell phone providers.
What was denied is JGR’s attempts to go on what the judge called a ‘fishing expedition’ in subpoenaing third party representatives from Chevrolet teams to see if any of their trade secrets were shared from Spire. For their part, Spire has taken exception to this request because they felt like JGR should seek to subpoena Hendrick Motorsports if they really wanted to see what Spire was using this season, since that is actually their partnership organization.
If Spire is using it, Hendrick would see that reflected in their partnership, is the argument being made there. JGR has not subpoenaed Hendrick Motorsports.
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