Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-5_05-cv-01937/USCOURTS-cand-5_05-cv-01937-29/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 360
Nature of Suit: Other Personal Injury
Cause of Action: 28:1332 Diversity-Personal Injury

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1 The holding of this court is limited to the facts and the particular circumstances

underlying the present motion.

2 Given the motion’s clear lack of legal merit–and the proximity of trial–the court is not

inclined to spend any more of the parties’ and the court’s time with further briefing and hearing on this

motion.

ORDER, page 1

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

SAN JOSE DIVISION

RICHARD LYTEL,

Plaintiff,

v.

JANET SIMPSON, 

Defendant.

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AND RELATED CROSS-ACTION

___________________________________

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Case No.: C 05-1937 JF (PVT)

ORDER DENYING DEFENDANT’S MOTION

FOR PROTECTIVE ORDER REQUIRING

RETURN OF DOCUMENTS PROVIDED BY

DEFENDANT’S EXPERT TO SUN AND

LYTEL; DENYING APPLICATION TO

SHORTEN TIME; AND GRANTING REQUEST

TO SEAL

On August 31, 2006, Defendant filed a motion for a protective order requiring the return of

documents her expert provided to counsel for Sun Microsystems, Inc. (“Sun”), who in turn produced

the documents to counsel for Plaintiff.1 Having reviewed the papers submitted by Defendant, the

court finds it appropriate to issue an order without further briefing or oral argument.2 Based on the

moving papers and the file herein,

IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Defendant’s motion is DENIED. Defendant cites no case or

Case 5:05-cv-01937-JF Document 448 Filed 09/14/06 Page 1 of 3
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3 All references to rules herein are to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

4 Under Hartford, a key factor in evaluating whether an inadvertent production did not

waive privilege and/or work product protection, thus warranting an order requiring return of the

protected documents, is the reasonableness of the precautions taken to prevent inadvertent disclosure.

This court’s prior order expressly provided that Defendant’s counsel was entitled to review the

documents retrieved from Defendant’s hard drive before the production to Sun and Plaintiff. Yet

Defendant fails to explain what effort, if any, her counsel made to review the documents before they

were produced.

ORDER, page 2

statute that would authorize the court to order Lytel to return the documents under the present

circumstances. There is no provision under Rule 26(c)3 expressly authorizing a court to order the

return of inadvertently produced documents. While Rule 26(c) has been relied on by courts in

ordering return of inadvertently produced privileged or work product documents, the issue in those

cases is primarily addressed as a question of whether the privilege or work product protections have

been waived. In those cases it is the protected nature of the documents that form the basis for an

order that the documents be returned. Defendant does not assert that any of the documents at issue

in this motion are protected by any privilege or the work product doctrine. Moreover, even if

Defendant had asserted privilege or work product protections, Defendant has not made the showing

required to warrant return of inadvertently produced privileged or work product documents. See,

e.g., Hartford Fire Ins. Co. v. Garvey, 109 F.R.D. 323, 331-32 (N.D.Cal. 1985).4

The availability of protective orders under Rule 26(c) is “plainly limited in its application to

protection from abuses flowing from the employment of the discovery rules.” See Kirshner v.

Uniden Corporation of America, 842 F.2d 1974, 1080-81 (9th Cir. 1988) quoting 4 Moore’s Federal

Practice ¶ 26.78 at 26-503 to 26-504 (1987). The order Defendant seeks does not constitute

protection from any abuse of the discovery process by another party.

Plaintiff had served Defendant with a request for production of the hard drive from her

personal computer. Plaintiff objected and moved for a protective order arguing that many privileged

and irrelevant documents were contained thereon. The court granted the motion only in part,

denying the motion to the extent Defendant sought to protect her entire hard drive, and authorizing

the experts (both Plaintiff’s and Defendant’s) to search only for emails between Defendant and other

Sun employees. Nothing in that order was intended to grant unconditional protection to any nonCase 5:05-cv-01937-JF Document 448 Filed 09/14/06 Page 2 of 3
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5 The court’s intent was to protect only information that was not within the broad scope

of discovery. Neither Plaintiff nor the court knew what other documents on Defendant’s computer might

fall within the scope of discovery. Because the only information Plaintiff specifically identified and

actively sought were communications between Defendant and other Sun employees, the court limited

the production accordingly. 

ORDER, page 3

privileged documents that may be relevant to this litigation.5 The court does not hereby attempt to

determine whether or not the documents which are the subject of this motion are relevant to this

action. The court only clarifies the intent of its prior order to make clear that the voluntary

production of non-privileged documents by Defendant’s own expert did not in any way constitute the

kind of“abuse” of the discovery process for which Rule 26(c) provides protection.

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Defendant’s application to shorten time for this motion is

DENIED as moot.

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Defendant’s request to file copies of the subject documents

under seal is GRANTED. On the face of the documents, it is sufficiently apparent that they

constitute confidential communications to warrant filing them under seal at this time.

Dated: 9/14/06

 

PATRICIA V. TRUMBULL

United States Magistrate Judge

Case 5:05-cv-01937-JF Document 448 Filed 09/14/06 Page 3 of 3