Overseas Defendants Not Required to Pay for Translation of Docs, N.C. Court Rules

RALEIGH, N.C. — A North Carolina appellate court has ruled that overseas defendants in a product liability case are not required to pay for the translation of documents prepared in their non-English home languages.

In a Dec. 31 opinion, the North Carolina Court of Appeals ruled that a trial court erred in requiring Toyota Motor Co. to create new documents in English of documents already provided that are in Japanese, explaining that Civil Rule of Procedure 26 does not mandate as such.

In July 2021, a dump truck allegedly ran a stop sign and collided with a 2013 Toyota Scion …