McGuireWoods Attorney-Client Privilege/Work Product Case Summary Database

Showing 633 of 633 results

Chapter: 55.1
Case Name: Chevalier-Seawell v. Mangum, Case No. CL14-2789, 2015 Va. Cir. LEXIS 146 (Va. 2015)
("'Parties seeking to challenge a claim of privilege have sparse information at their disposal. Because they do not actually have access to the privileged documents, they must rely on the opposing party's description of them in the privilege log. Accordingly, the descriptions in the log must satisfy the claiming party's burden.").

Case Date Jurisdiction State Cite Checked
2015-01-01 State VA

Chapter: 55.1
Case Name: United States v. J-M Mfg. Co., Inc., Civ. A. No. 11-cv-01691-MSK-MJW, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 14800, at *10 n.3 (D. Colo. Feb. 4, 2013)
(holding that the opinion work product doctrine can protect the results of testing; "The Court is mindful that the Defendants are forced to argue about the contents of documents they have not seen, and thus, they cannot be expected to point out specific content within the documents that support their contentions.")

Case Date Jurisdiction State Cite Checked
2013-02-04 Federal CO B 2/14

Chapter: 55.1
Case Name: ePlus, Inc. v. Lawson Software, Inc., 280 F.R.D. 247, 252 (E.D. Va. 2012)
("Parties seeking to challenge a claim of privilege have sparse information at their disposal. Because they do not actually have access to the privileged documents, they must rely on the opposing party's description of them in the privilege log. 'Accordingly, the descriptions in the log must satisfy the claiming party's burden.' Rambus, Inc. v. Infineon Techs. AG, 220 F.R.D. 264, 272 (E.D. Va. 2004).")

Case Date Jurisdiction State Cite Checked
2012-01-01 Federal VA

Chapter: 55.1
Case Name: Rambus, Inc. v. Infineon Techs. AG, 220 F.R.D. 264, 272 (E.D. Va. 2004)
("For many years, courts have required that parties claiming privileges demonstrate entitlement thereto in a list or log that describes the ground of the putative protection with a degree of specificity that allows the opposing party to assess the assertion of the privilege against the applicable tests and to challenge any claim thought to be wanting. That assessment and any challenge, of course, must be done on the basis of the description contained on the log (or an equivalent pleading) because the opposing party does not have access to the putatively privileged document when seeking to mount a challenge to a privilege claim. Accordingly, the descriptions in the log must satisfy the claiming party's burden.")

Case Date Jurisdiction State Cite Checked
2004-01-01 Federal VA B 12/05

Chapter: 55.3
Case Name: Hopkins v. Board of County Commissioners of Wilson County, Kansas, Case No. 15-cv-2072-CM-TJJ, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 122356 (D. Kansas July 23, 2018)
("Due to the confusion when ACH's discovery responses were actually due, the Court declines to find ACH waived its claims of attorney-client privilege and work product by its failure to serve its privilege log when its discovery responses were due. As noted above, ACH likely realized on March 8, 2018 that Plaintiffs' counsel was not planning to re-serve the discovery requests. Construing March 8 as the date Plaintiffs' discovery requests were presumptively re-served on ACH, then ACH's discovery responses would have been due 30 days later, or on April 9, 2018. ACH provided its initial privilege log on April 30, 2018, after its counsel spoke with Plaintiffs' counsel on April 3, 2018. ACH provided a revised privilege log two week later on May 14, 2018, after Plaintiffs raised issues with the sufficiency of ACH's original privilege log."; "As recognized by courts in this District, waiver of privilege is a harsh sanction and should be reserved as a penalty where the offending party committed unjustified delay in responding. The Court finds ACH's relatively short delay in providing a privilege log was not unjustified and does not warrant the harsh sanction of waiver.")

Case Date Jurisdiction State Cite Checked
2018-07-23 Federal KS

Chapter: 55.3
Case Name: Brown v. Nationwide Affinity Ins. Co. of America, 4:17-CV-04176-LLP, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 109115 (D.S.D. June 29, 2018)
("Nationwide's failure to assert the work product doctrine in its Vaughn index would be enough, standing by itself, to defeat the application of the doctrine. Discovery objections are waived if they are not first asserted in the responses to the opposing party's discovery requests.")

Case Date Jurisdiction State Cite Checked
2018-06-29 Federal SD

Chapter: 55.3
Case Name: Scheller v. Williams Cos., Case No. CIV-17-632-M, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 96880 (W.D. Okla. June 1, 2018)
(ordering another "meet and confer" before ruling on privilege issues; "Because of the timing of the production of the privilege log in relation to the briefing of the instant motion and because the meet and confer between the parties occurred prior to the production of the privilege log, the Court finds it is unable to rule on any claims of privilege at this time. Specifically, the Court orders the parties to meet and confer regarding the documents in dispute on the privilege log. Once the parties have met and conferred, and if there are remaining documents in dispute, plaintiff shall file a motion regarding those documents. After that motion is fully briefed, the Court will determine whether defendants need to produce the disputed documents to the Court for an in camera review.")

Case Date Jurisdiction State Cite Checked
2018-06-01 Federal OK

Chapter: 55.3
Case Name: Absolute Activist Value Master Fund Ltd. v. Devine, Case No. 2:15-cv-328-FtM-29MRM, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 56624 (M.D. Fla. April 13, 2017)
(holding that the inadvertent production of protected documents did not result in a waiver; "'Pursuant to Federal Rule of Evidence 502(d), disclosure of Discovery Material subject to the attorney-client privilege or work-product doctrine or any other applicable privilege or immunity from disclosure without the express intent to waive such privilege, protection or immunity from disclosure shall not be deemed a waiver in whole or in part of the privilege, work-product or other applicable immunity, either as to the specific information disclosed or as to the same or related subject matter. If a Party promptly notifies the opposing Party or Parties in writing by hand delivery, overnight delivery, or e-mail (which e-mail must be considered delivered when sent) of the inadvertent disclosure of documents or other information which that Party believes in good faith to be subject to a claim of privilege, including but not limited to attorney-client privilege or attorney work product, Federal Rule of Evidence 502 and Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b)(5)(B) must apply. Such notice must include a privilege log that complies with Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b)(5)(A).'"; "The Court agrees with Defendant that first sentence of Paragraph 17 stands for the proposition that the mere fact of disclosure 'without the express intent to waive such privilege' shall not be deemed to be a waiver of any privilege."; "The first sentence of Paragraph 17, however, does not address what happens when privileged materials are inadvertently disclosed. Instead, the second sentence of Paragraph 17 addresses this issue."; "Plaintiffs argue that Rule 502(b) provides the applicable standard for review for inadvertent disclosures. . . . Defendant, however, argues that the first sentence of the Stipulation and Protective Order provides the applicable standard. . . . Upon review, the Court notes that the express terms of the Stipulation and Protective Order state that Fed. R. Evid. 502 must apply if the notice requirements are met.")

Case Date Jurisdiction State Cite Checked
2017-04-13 Federal FL

Chapter: 55.3
Case Name: NLRB v. NPC International, Inc., 13-0010, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 23138 (W.D. Tenn. Feb. 16, 2017)
("Although NPC should have known that its conclusory document descriptions were inadequate to allow the NLRB and the Court to assess its claims of attorney-client privilege and work-product protection, the Court does not find that this is an appropriate case in which to treat the protections as waived. There is no evidence that Respondent acted in bad faith. With respect to the timing of the log, as discussed above, the Court has already rejected NPC's contention that it had no duty to produce a privilege log at the administrative level. However, Respondent's belief in that respect appears grounded in its good faith reliance on its interpretation of Detroit Newspapers. Rather, the Court will require NPC to submit a supplemental privilege log that remedies the shortcomings addressed in this order.")

Case Date Jurisdiction State Cite Checked
2017-02-16 Federal TN

Chapter: 55.3
Case Name: Patrick v. City of Chicago, No. 14 C 3658, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 85719 (N.D. Ill. July 1, 2015)
("Since Rule 26(b)(5)(A) does not contain a time limit within which a privilege log must be submitted, the cases are not harmonious as to when a privilege log is impermissibly late and whether forfeiture of a claimed privilege is a consequence of a belated filing.")

Case Date Jurisdiction State Cite Checked
2015-07-01 Federal IL

Chapter: 55.3
Case Name: Thermoset Corp. v. Building Materials Corp. of America, Case No. 14-60268-Civ-Cohn/Seltzer, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 45924 (S.D. Fla. April 8, 2015)
(finding that defendant was not inappropriately tardy in filing a privilege log thirty-eight days after producing responsive documents; also finding that defendant's inadvertent production did not result in a waiver; "In Burlington [Burlington N. & Santa Fe. Ry. Co. v. United States Dist. Court for the Dist. Of Montana, 408 F.3d 1142 (9th Cir. 2005)], the Ninth Circuit rejected a per se rule that a failure to produce a privilege log within 30 days (that is, at the time a response to a document request is due), waives the privilege asserted. Instead, the Burlington Court set forth several factors to be applied 'in the context of a holistic reasonableness analysis,' using the 30-day period as a default guideline. . . . The relevant factors are: 'the degree to which the objection or assertion of privilege enables the litigant seeking discovery and the court to evaluate whether each of the withheld documents is privileged (where providing particulars typically contained in a privilege log is presumptively sufficient and boilerplate objections are presumptively insufficient); the timeliness of the objection and accompanying information about the withheld documents . . . ; the magnitude of the document production; and other particular circumstances of the litigation that make responding to discovery unusually easy . . . Or unusually hard.'"; "After carefully considering the parties' respective arguments and the totality of the Burlington factors, the Court does not find that the timing of GAF's production of its Supplemental Privilege Log was so unreasonable as to warrant the harsh sanction of waiver of the attorney-client privilege, which privilege has been described as 'a cornerstone of the entire judicial/legal system in this country.'")

Case Date Jurisdiction State Cite Checked
2015-04-08 Federal FL

Chapter: 55.3
Case Name: SEC v. Yorkville Advisors, LLC, 12 Civ. 7728 (GBD) (HBP), 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 72090 (S.D.N.Y. May 27, 2014)
(finding that the SEC waived its work product protection by producing an inadequate log late; "For example, with respect to information relating to authors and recipients, the SEC explains that defendants' October 2013 Letter 'did not state that . . . the SEC had failed to list all of the names of the individual authors and recipients.'. . . The fact that defendants may have failed to specify the exact nature of the Privilege Logs' deficiencies is immaterial because it was the SEC's affirmative obligation, as the party asserting the privilege, to furnish the information listed in Local Civil Rule 26.2(a)(2)(A) at the time its response to the RFP was due. As attorneys admitted to practice in this Court, the SEC's attorneys are deemed to have knowledge of the Court's rules.")

Case Date Jurisdiction State Cite Checked
2014-05-27 Federal NY

Chapter: 55.3
Case Name: SEC v. Yorkville Advisors, LLC, 12 Civ. 7728 (GBD) (HBP), 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 72090 (S.D.N.Y. May 27, 2014)
(finding that the SEC waived its work product protection by producing an inadequate log late; "To the extent that the SEC now offers new details pertaining to the subject matter, authors and recipients of certain documents, I find that the submission is untimely. Under the Local Civil Rules, the SEC was required to serve a proper privilege log in January 2013. Local Civil Rule 26.2(b). . . . The SEC's justification for its belated production is totally inadequate.")

Case Date Jurisdiction State Cite Checked
2014-05-27 Federal NY

Chapter: 55.3
Case Name: SEC v. Yorkville Advisors, LLC, 12 Civ. 7728 (GBD) (HBP), 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 72090 (S.D.N.Y. May 27, 2014)
(finding that the SEC waived its work product protection by producing an inadequate log late; "[T]he Local Civil Rules provide that a party claiming a privilege must provide the foregoing information in writing and within the time the response to the discovery request is due, unless the court orders otherwise.")

Case Date Jurisdiction State Cite Checked
2014-05-27 Federal NY

Chapter: 55.3
Case Name: Khasin v. Hershey Co., Case No. 5:12-cv-01862-EJD-PSG, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 23886, at *7 (N.D. Cal. Feb. 21, 2014)
(finding that Hershey did not waive its privilege by producing an inadequate log, but ordering a new log; "Such a log should generally be submitted within thirty days of the production request being served.")

Case Date Jurisdiction State Cite Checked
2014-02-21 Federal CA B 7/14

Chapter: 55.3
Case Name: H&L Assocs. of Kan. City, LLC v. Midwestern Indem. Co., Case No. 12-2713-EFM-DJW, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 153252, at *15, *17-18 (D. Kan. Oct. 25, 2013)
("Under Rule 26(b)(5)(A), the privilege log is due '[w]hen a party withholds information.' For a party served with a request for production, Rule 34(b)(2)(A) requires that the party 'must respond within 30 days after being served.' Thus, the privilege log would be due at the time the party's responses to requests for production are due as that would be the time when the party is deemed to have withheld responsive information. For this case, Defendant's privilege log would have been due at the time it produced the redacted documents or when it withheld or failed to produce documents responsive to the discovery requests."; "In the present case, although Defendant did not provide a privilege log at the time it produced the redacted documents, it did provide a privilege log on July 5, 2013, a little more than a month after it asserted the privilege/protection. Also, the privilege log entries for the claim activity log redactions, along with the unredacted information on the claim activity log, provide sufficient information for Plaintiff and the Court to assess the privilege/protection being claimed. Thus, Plaintiff was notified that Defendant had withheld information on the claim activity log at the time it received the redacted documents. The Court declines to find waiver based upon the untimely submission of a privilege log under these circumstances.")

Case Date Jurisdiction State Cite Checked
2013-10-25 Federal KS B 5/14