A Washington orchard machinery company has asked a federal judge to declare that it’s not obligated to repurchase parts from another equipment dealer.

Blueline Equipment of Yakima, Wash., has filed a federal lawsuit against RDO Equipment, a North Dakota-based dealer, related to the distribution of Gregoire machinery and parts.

According to the lawsuit, equipment manufactured by Gregoire — which isn’t a party to the lawsuit — was imported from France by Blueline, which then allowed RDO to distribute the equipment under an agreement signed in 2016.

When RDO terminated that contract in 2022, the company requested that Blueline repurchase about $188,000 of Gregoire parts, the complaint said.

Though RDO initially desisted from that demand, the company later upped the request to $220,000 and most recently to $660,000, the lawsuit alleges.

“RDO purchased most if not all this additional parts inventory — not through or from Blueline — but through or from other sources including Gregoire directly,” the plaintiff said.

The lawsuit claims that because RDO is not an equipment dealer in Washington, Blueline isn’t obligated to repurchase the parts under a state law governing such agreements.

The Washington law also doesn’t apply because RDO lacked “good cause” to terminate the dealership agreement, since it “sought to circumvent its relationship with Blueline and engage directly with Gregoire,” the complaint said.

Alternatively, the plaintiff alleges that RDO waived its right to demand the repurchase of parts and had failed to prove it actually bought the parts from Blueline.

Apart from a declaration that Blueline isn’t obligated to repurchase the parts, the lawsuit seeks compensation for the company’s litigation expenses.

Last year, Blueline filed a patent lawsuit against a Serbian equipment manufacturer, BSK, asking a federal judge to declare that it hadn’t infringed on the other company’s intellectual property.

In that case, which remains pending, Blueline claims it’d been falsely accused of misusing BSK’s patent while building a fruit harvesting device. In an earlier cease-and-desist letter, BSK had accused Blueline of causing nearly $4 million in damages by infringing on the patent.