Privilege or Work Product Protections – Page 41

Bowles v. Nat’l Ass’n of Home Builders, 2004 WL 2203831 (D.D.C. Sept. 30, 2004)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: Court ruled that defendant effected waiver of its attorney-client and work product privileges as to all documents on the same subject matter as the privileged documents it gave to plaintiff when she was president, since defendant’s failure to take any legal action to assert its privilege or otherwise to recover the documents for more than a year did not constitute “reasonable steps to reclaim the protected material.” Parties ordered to submit further briefing on the scope of the subject matter waiver.

Nature of Case: Former president of association sued for wrongful termination

Electronic Data Involved: Privileged emails

Portis v. City of Chicago, 2004 WL 1535854 (N.D. Ill. July 7, 2004)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: Court granted motion to compel access to database constituting fact work product, where requesting party demonstrated (1) substantial need for the information and (2) undue hardship were it required to compile a similar database from scratch; however, requesting party would have to contribute its fair share toward the expenses incurred in compiling the database

Nature of Case: Class action for civil rights violations

Electronic Data Involved: Database compiled at direction of plaintiffs’ attorneys

Byrne v. Byrne, 650 N.Y.S.2d 499 (1996)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: Wife’s acts of removing laptop from family home and delivering it to her attorney for safekeeping were not wrongful; court established protocol for inspection and production

Nature of Case: Divorce proceeding

Electronic Data Involved: Financial data stored on laptop provided by husband’s employer

Rambus, Inc. v. Infineon Tech. AG, 222 F.R.D. 280 (E.D. Va. 2004)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: Based on in camera review, court granted defendant’s motion to compel based on the crime/fraud exception to the attorney-client privilege, ordered production of other documents on same subject matter and further ruled that discovery would be allowed regarding documents produced and on the issue of sanctions

Nature of Case: Patent infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Email, backup tapes

Ciba-Geigy Corp. v. Sandoz, Ltd., 916 F. Supp. 404 (D.N.J. 1995)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: Production of documents from litigation database without first conducting privilege review constituted inexcusable neglect and waived attorney-client privilege; inadvertent disclosure clause in governing protective order did not apply

Nature of Case: Environmental litigation

Electronic Data Involved: Memorandum selected from litigation database

Santiago v. Miles, 121 F.R.D. 636 (W.D.N.Y. 1988)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: Motion to compel production of computer printouts denied as to those constituting work product, granted as to those that were not prepared in anticipation of litigation

Nature of Case: Inmates sued for intentional discrimination in assignment of housing, programs, and administration of discipline

Electronic Data Involved: Computer printouts showing analysis of work locations and ethnicity of inmates

Collaboration Props., Inc. v. Polycom, Inc., 224 F.R.D. 473 (N.D. Cal. 2004)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: To enable parties to discuss more meaningfully the proper scope of any privilege and correlative redactions, court ordered producing party to show requesting party’s counsel non-redacted emails at meet and confer, reserving producing party’s right to assert any applicable privilege; court noted that process was especially appropriate since producing party had not argued that disclosure would result in unfair advantage to requesting party, but that material was irrelevant and it feared waiving privilege as to future third parties

Nature of Case: Patent infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Privileged emails

SEC v. Beacon Hill Asset Mgmt. LLC, 231 F.R.D. 134 (S.D.N.Y. 2004)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: Granting motion to compel contact list printed out from defendant’s contact management software program which was not timely included on defendant’s privilege log, court rejected “frivolous” argument that the contact list technically did not exist until it was printed: “For more than thirty years, Fed.R.Civ . P. 34(a) has included data stored on electronic media as being subject to a Rule 34 request. The fact that the data has not been printed out does not mean that the document does not exist. Indeed, if BH’s argument were meritorious, any party could avoid producing damaging documents through the simple expedient of storing them on electronic media and never printing them out.”

Nature of Case: SEC enforcement action

Electronic Data Involved: Email, spreadsheets and contact list

Computer Assoc. Int’l v. Quest Software, Inc., 56 Fed. R. Serv. 3d 401, 2003 WL 21277129 (N.D. Ill. June 3, 2003)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: Applying the Rowe balancing test, court denied producing party’s motion to require requesting party to pay costs associated with computerized privilege review estimated to cost $28,000-40,000

Nature of Case: Copyright infringement, misappropriation of trade secrets

Electronic Data Involved: 8 hard drives

S. Diagnostic Assoc. v. Bencosme, 833 So.2d 801 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2002)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: Appellate court granted writ and quashed trial court’s order granting party’s motion for leave to inspect non-party’s computer system; remanded with directions to trial court to craft a narrowly-tailored order that sets parameters and limitations on the inspection

Nature of Case: Insurance bad faith

Electronic Data Involved: Computer system; records of payments to physicians

Tag:Privilege or Work Product Protections