Zenith Radio Corp. v. Matsushita Electrical Industrial Co., Ltd. case brief

Zenith Radio Corp. v. Matsushita Electrical Industrial Co., Ltd. case brief summary
505 F.Supp. 1190 (E.D. Pa. 1980)

CASE SYNOPSIS

Plaintiffs, a group of domestic electronic corporations, filed an antitrust lawsuit against defendants, a Japanese electronic corporation and its United States subsidiary, alleging that defendants agreed on retail list prices, retail and wholesale profit margins, and rebates in connection with the sale of television sets and defendants sought dismissal of all allegations.

CASE FACTS
Plaintiffs brought an antitrust action against defendant electronic corporations and alleged that defendants agreed on retail list prices, retail and wholesale profit margins, and rebates in connection with the sale of television sets. Defendants sought dismissal of all claims.

DISCUSSION

• The court considered the admissibility of three major groups of documents: 
• 1) materials seized by the Japanese Fair Trade Commission through raids, 
• 2) testimony and statements or protocols of defendant companies, and 
• 3) materials produced in discovery from the files of defendants. 
• Plaintiff argued for their admissibility based on Fed. R. Evid. 803(b), 803(24), and 804(b)(5); the business records exception, the residual hearsay exceptions, and the statements against interests exceptions to the hearsay rule. 
• Defendants argued that the diaries were inadmissible hearsay. 
• The court held that the diaries were admissible against defendants because they had been properly authenticated under Fed. R. Evid. 901. 
• The court further held that the diaries, memoranda or minutes of meetings were admissible against defendants, however the "expert war chesting" references were inadmissible.

CONCLUSION
The court admitted some of the requested documents under exceptions to the hearsay rule but denied other requests as plaintiffs did not meet their burden of proving the documents' unavailability or coming within the hearsay exceptions.

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