Privilege or Work Product Protections – Page 30

Mancini v. Ins. Corp. of N.Y., 2009 WL 1765295 (S.D. Cal. June 18, 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Where plaintiffs responded to defendants? requests for production by producing 73 CDs containing the entire universe of documents from an underlying litigation, court held that plaintiffs ?cannot fulfill their discovery obligation?without referencing which specific documents were responsive to which specific request? and ordered plaintiffs to provide defendants with a list of documents responsive to each request

Nature of Case: Breach of insurance contract, failure to indemnify

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Infor Global Solutions (MI), Inc. v. St. Paul Fire & Marine Ins. Co., 2009 WL 2390174 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 3, 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Where out of ?an apparent concern about the court imposed deadline,? plaintiff produced electronic documents without review because of technical difficulties opening certain files and emails and where plaintiff informed no one of the difficulties, sought no extension from the court for production, and did not qualify the production with any ?clawback? notice, court found that plaintiff had waived privilege and granted defendant?s motion to compel

Nature of Case: Insurance

Electronic Data Involved: Privileged ESI

Gregorio v. Yellow Transp., Inc., 2009 WL 3756493 (N.D. Ill. Nov. 5, 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Court found no attorney-client privilege protection preventing production of employee’s email write up of an accident where Illinois law makes clear that ?employees who supply only the factual bases upon which the decisionmakers predicate their opinions? are not within the protected ?control group? pursuant to the relevant legal test and the communication was therefore not privileged; court also found no protection in the work product doctrine where the write up was generated in the usual course of business and was not of a ?legal nature? and ?primarily concerned with legal assistance?

Electronic Data Involved: Employee’s email description of accident

Clarke v. J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., 2009 WL 1838995 (S.D.N.Y. June 22, 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Court upheld prior determination that email withheld as protected by attorney-client privilege should be produced where review of the email and affidavits of defendant?s employees showed that ?rather than having been asked to make a recommendation, in-house counsel had been charged with making a corporate decision as to whether certain jobs would be reclassified? and that the email informed the recipients of that decision and did not provide legal advice

Nature of Case: Class action alleging violations of Fair Labor Standards Act

Electronic Data Involved: Email

Laethem Equip. Co. v. Deere & Co., 2009 WL 2777334 (E.D. Mich. Aug. 27, 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Court ruled on defendant?s objections to magistrate?s order, including, among other things, addressing issues of privilege pursuant to FRE 502(b) and analyzing the propriety of claims of privilege as to certain categories of documents, including those stored on a server that was available to all employees; court also ordered each party to bear the costs of production for the documents it requested (a direct contradiction to the presumption that the responding party must bear the expense of compliance) where such an order would ?curb [the] bilateral tendency? to broaden discovery demands to include both important and marginal information ?whose primary utility would be found in the burden and cost of production to the other side?

Nature of Case: Breach of contract, statutory violations, tortious interference

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Sajda v. Brewton, 2009 WL 4061356 (N.D. Ind. Nov. 20, 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Court granted in part motion to compel documents withheld as privileged where plaintiff sought the “sideswipe report” created by defendants following the relevant accident and where the court found the report had been prepared in the ordinary course of business and was not therefore protected as privileged; as to the computer template used to generate the report, the court found ?the computer template?appears to be a regularly generated report? and thus was not subject to attorney-client or work product protection; court declined to compel production of the ?DOT Accident Register? where such production was prohibited by statute

Nature of Case: Personal injury

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Multiquip, Inc. v. Water Mgmt. Systs., LLC, 2009 WL 4261214 (D. Idaho Nov. 23, 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Where, as a result of the autofill function in email, defendant mistakenly sent a privileged communication to a third party which was thereafter forwarded to opposing counsel in the litigation, court undertook waiver analysis pursuant to ER 502 and found that privilege was not waived where defendant disclosed the communication inadvertently, where defendant?s reliance on ?a system that had worked in particular way in the past? was reasonable to prevent disclosure, and where defendant?s counsel took immediate steps to rectify the error upon learning of the disclosure

Electronic Data Involved: Privileged email

Boyer v. Gildea, 2009 WL 230646 (N.D. Ind. Jan. 29, 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Finding emails between trustee?s former and current counsel and an email between current counsel and a fact witness subject to protection from disclosure under the work production doctrine and noting defendant?s failure to assert substantial need or inability to obtain equivalent materials by other means, court denied defendant?s motion to compel production of the emails at issue

Nature of Case: Adversary proceeding alleging statutory violations by entering into agreement to control price of auction assets

Electronic Data Involved: Emails

Fuller v. Interview, Inc., 2009 WL 3241542 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 30, 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Court found no waiver of privilege where production was inadvertent, where reasonable steps were taken to protect privileged materials, where the volume of inadvertently produced material was very small (portions of a few pages out of 34,000 pages produced), and where defendants acted quickly to assert the privilege after discovering the inadvertent production

Nature of Case: Termination in violation of Family Medical Leave Act

Electronic Data Involved: Portions of privileged emails

Kandel v. Brother Int?l Corp., 2009 WL 5454888 (C.D. Cal. Dec. 15, 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Where defendants presented evidence that 110 privileged documents were produced despite extensive preventative measures, including key word searching and manual review, and where defense counsel took immediate action to identify all privileged materials that had been produced and to request plaintiff return, sequester, or destroy the documents pursuant to the parties? clawback agreement, court found that ?defendants ha[d] shown their production?was inadvertent within the meaning of?the protective order? and denied plaintiff?s motion for an order declaring 28 documents produced by defendants to be not privileged

Nature of Case: Class action

Electronic Data Involved: Privileged communications

Tag:Privilege or Work Product Protections