Court Opinion

ID: 9403115
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-06-20 15:02:15.853875+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:20:04.705675
License: Public Domain

22-1598
     3DT Holdings, LLC v. Bard Access Sys., Inc.

                            UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                                FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT

                                          SUMMARY ORDER
RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO A SUMMARY
ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED BY FEDERAL RULE OF
APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT’S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN CITING A SUMMARY ORDER
IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN
ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE NOTATION “SUMMARY ORDER”). A PARTY CITING A SUMMARY
ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL.

 1                 At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit,
 2   held at the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the City of
 3   New York, on the 20th day of June, two thousand twenty-three.
 4
 5   PRESENT:
 6               BARRINGTON D. PARKER,
 7               MICHAEL H. PARK,
 8               ALISON J. NATHAN,
 9                     Circuit Judges.
10   _____________________________________
11
12   3DT Holdings, LLC,
13
14                               Plaintiff-Appellant,
15
16                     v.                                           22-1598
17
18   Bard Access Systems, Inc.,
19
20                     Defendant-Appellee.
21   _____________________________________
22
23   FOR PLAINTIFF-APPELLANT:                                       DANIEL J. G IBSON, Delk
24                                                                  McNally LLP, Muncie, IN
25                                                                  (Deanna L. Koestel, Pashman
26                                                                  Stein Walder Hayden, P.C.,
27                                                                  Hackensack, NJ, on the brief)
28
 1   FOR DEFENDANT-APPELLEE:                                              NATALIE H. MANTELL
 2                                                                        (Edward J. Fanning, Jr., on
 3                                                                        the brief), McCarter &
 4                                                                        English, LLP, Newark, NJ
 5

 6          Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of

 7   New York (Liman, J.).

 8          UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND

 9   DECREED that the judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.

10          3DT Holdings, Inc. (“3DT”) developed a technology, called “Penske” by the parties, that

11   aimed to “help clinicians reliably navigate catheters” to the heart “and to confirm proper placement

12   of a catheter without using a chest x-ray or” electrocardiogram. Special App’x at SPA3. Bard

13   Access Systems, Inc. (“Bard”), a medical-device manufacturer, purchased Penske from 3DT.

14   The transaction’s Development Agreement required Bard to “provide commercially reasonable

15   personnel, financial and other support (as determined by Bard, in good faith, based upon its

16   reasonable business judgment) with regard to development of a Bard Product incorporating” the

17   Penske technology.      App’x at A695.      But after three years of development, Bard could

18   “determine[] in good faith, based upon its reasonable business judgment, that the Exploitation of

19   a Bard Product incorporating [Penske] is no longer commercially practicable due to . . . the

20   creation, development, and/or commercial availability of superior technology” and cease

21   developing Penske.      Id.   Bard exercised that option and 3DT sued, arguing that Bard had

22   breached both the development-support and termination provisions.

23          The district court (Liman, J.) entered a verdict for Bard following a bench trial. 3DT

24   appeals, arguing that the district court (1) misinterpreted the termination provision of the

                                                      2
 1   Development Agreement, (2) clearly erred in finding that Bard determined that Penske was not

 2   commercially practicable due to the availability of superior technology, and (3) clearly erred in

 3   finding that Bard provided reasonable support to the Penske project. We assume the parties’

 4   familiarity with the facts, the procedural posture, and the issues on appeal.

 5          “[A]fter a bench trial, we review the district court's finding of fact for clear error and its

 6   conclusions of law de novo.” Mango v. BuzzFeed, Inc., 970 F.3d 167, 170 (2d Cir. 2020) (cleaned

 7   up). 3DT’s arguments lack merit. First, the district court did not misinterpret the Development

 8   Agreement by failing to require Bard to show that it determined that Penske was commercially

 9   impracticable. On the contrary, the district court explicitly found that 3DT did not meet “its

10   burden to show that Bard failed to make the requisite commercial impracticability determination

11   that could relieve it of the obligation to continue work on the Penske technology.” Special App’x

12   at SPA40; accord Appellant’s Br. at 32 (conceding that “the District Court did not expressly adopt

13   [a contrary] interpretation of the Development Agreement”).

14          Second, the district court did not clearly err in finding that Bard reasonably determined in

15   good faith that the development of a superior alternative technology made Penske commercially

16   impracticable. For example, the evidence at trial showed that Bard failed to generate consistent

17   results in experiments using Penske and that Penske had characteristics that would complicate

18   necessary regulatory approval from the Food and Drug Administration.              A different Bard

19   catheter-location project, Modus II, lacked these hurdles. Although 3DT points to evidence of

20   Penske’s commercial and scientific advantages over Modus II, “a district court’s choice between

21   two permissible views of the evidence cannot be clearly erroneous.” United States v. Rizzo, 349

22   F.3d 94, 98 (2d Cir. 2003).

                                                      3
 1          Third, the district court did not clearly err in finding that Bard provided commercially-

 2   reasonable development support (as determined by Bard in good faith and based upon its

 3   reasonable business judgment) to Penske. The district court permissibly chose to credit evidence

 4   that “[t]he Penske project progressed in large part in the same way that other projects at Bard

 5   progressed,” and to reject the “contention that the Penske team lacked the expertise, personnel, or

 6   resources to render Bard’s support commercially reasonable.” Special App’x at SPA35, SPA37.

 7   Although 3DT emphasizes Bard’s decision to slow the progress of the Penske project after

 8   development setbacks in 2016, evidence supported the district court’s findings that Bard

 9   nevertheless “continued to make progress toward the goal of commercialization” and that lulls in

10   development “happened at Bard with some regularity” and were not commercially unreasonable.

11   Id. at SPA39.

12          We have considered all of 3DT’s remaining arguments and find them to be without merit.

13   For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.

14                                                FOR THE COURT:
15                                                Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe, Clerk of Court
16

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