in the court of appeals of the state - Mississippi Supreme Court

a mistake and that Kelly was a stand alone subsidiary which merged into Goodyear. He told
the trial court that he had corrected the interrogatory answer.
43. After hearing the discovery problems and knowing that the trial was only days away,
the trial judge ordered Goodyear to produce a complete copy of the Robinson deposition to
the Kirby plaintiffs, who were ordered to keep the deposition under seal. The trial court also
ordered that Goodyear produce five additional depositions or testimony of Goodyear
personnel in other cases to be selected by the Kirby plaintiffs. This was done on August 30,
2006, and the trial was set for October 2006.
44. Portions of Robinson’s deposition comprised the first witness for the plaintiffs. Prior
to the plaintiffs’ attorney reading the selected portions of the deposition, the trial court noted
that the defendants reserved their objections as to admissibility and relevancy. The
defendants’ attorney was also allowed to read to the jury from the deposition. While the bulk
of Robinson’s deposition was about load range E tires which are light-duty truck tires,
Robinson also testified that he had experience with passenger tires as a chief engineer for
Goodyear. In 1995 he said Goodyear restructured its development department and put
passenger tire design in which he worked and light truck tire design into one department.
He said that he was on a tread-throw committee from 1996 until 2001 that was primarily
looking at problems with light truck tires, but he said that he had seen tread-throw problems
in other tires as tread separation had always been a concern of Goodyear.
45. The other evidence to which Goodyear objected was a document styled “Problem
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