Court Orders Production of All Materials Made Available to Experts

United States Fid. & Guar. Co. v. Braspetro Oil Serv. Co., 2002 WL 15652, 53 Fed.R.Serv.3d 60 (S.D.N.Y. 2002)

Plaintiffs sought production of privileged documents, on the grounds that defendants had made all of the documents on their privilege log available to their experts, thereby waiving all privilege with respect to those documents, as well as subjecting the documents to the requirements of expert discovery under Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(a)(s).

The court found that the defendants made available the full contents of some 60 CD-ROMs to at least two testifying experts. The court stated it could only conclude, under the circumstances, that the defendants voluntarily relinquished whatever confidentiality attached to the contents of those disks, and thereby waived the attorney-client privilege with respect to everything on the disks. 2002 WL 15652, at *5. Ordering the defendants to produce all materials provided to their experts, the court explained that the order extended to everything on defendant’s privilege logs, and included all documents, privileged or privileged, furnished in hard copy or electronic form, as well as all indexes and search tools furnished therewith. Id. at *9.