Cooper Tire Penalized for Misleading Court

Cooper Tire & Rubber Co. was sanctioned by a Mississippi judge for withholding documents and misleading the court in a wrongful-death lawsuit.

State Judge Bobby B. DeLaughter found the second-largest U.S. tire maker failed to turn over records of warranty claims and tire failures that the company told the court it had given to lawyers for relatives of an accident victim.

“The fact that Cooper Tire withheld those documents, but misled the court in representing that it had, in fact, furnished them, is further evidence of just how far Cooper is willing to go to rape discovery requirements,” DeLaughter wrote, ordering the tire maker to produce the documents by Friday or pay $10,000 a day in penalties.

Cooper said it is “reviewing options.” Shares of Findlay, Ohio-based Cooper, the No. 2 U.S. tire maker behind Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., fell 31 cents to $20.01 on the NYSE.