For two years he was the point man for Lucent's data-network drive. Until this past January, Bill O'Shea was president of Lucent's Data Networking Systems (DNS), heralded as one of the hottest units in one of the nation's hottest companies. If there was a product announcement, company acquisition, analyst conference or trade show briefing that had to do with data, O'Shea was the man to lead it.
But apparently there's one thing O'Shea doesn't do for Lucent - testify under oath.
In a battle that has assumed Dickensian proportions, Newbridge Networks attorneys have spent months issuing depositions to ask O'Shea to explain Lucent's data-network product line, only to have Lucent refuse to produce him. Lucent sued Newbridge in June 1997. The case is ongoing.
The battle came to a head this month, when Newbridge attorneys wrote to Judge Joseph Farnan of U.S. District Court in Wilmington, Del., complaining that lower-level Lucent employees who've been deposed keep saying O'Shea has the answers to Newbridge's detailed questions.
Newbridge's protest provoked a stern reply to the judge from Lucent attorney Josy Ingersoll. First Ingersoll noted that O'Shea is now head of Lucent's Business Communications Systems group - though that was a title he also held while heading DNS.
Then she wrote: "Mr. O'Shea, who has a high-level overall management position, is not capable of testifying to the types of detailed facts regarding product development Newbridge requires." Lucent has offered other witnesses to answer Newbridge's questions, Ingersoll added. She cited cases in other industries in which top executives have been allowed to escape discovery hearings.
"There is, therefore, no point in burdening Mr. O'Shea, who is a busy executive of Lucent, with a deposition on these subjects," she concluded. Judge Farnan eventually ruled in Lucent's favor. Newbridge attorneys are now in the process of deposing additional Lucent employees.
