Lost documents delay Ohio satellite tax case

COLUMBUS (AP) — The Ohio Supreme Court has temporarily halted a satellite TV industry tax challenge after a lower court lost dozens of pages of depositions and other evidence.

The stay was requested jointly by satellite companies DirecTV and Echostar, and by state tax commissioner Richard Levin. Their legal dispute centers around a state sales tax imposed in 2003 on the satellite industry and not its cable competitors.

In preparing their briefings, the parties said they’d discovered the 10th District Court of Appeals failed to transmit to the higher court “a substantial number” of papers, including depositions, affidavits, hearing transcripts, pleadings and exhibits.

The lower court has since recycled the originals, so lawyers are trying to reconstruct the record.