Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-casd-3_16-cv-01986/USCOURTS-casd-3_16-cv-01986-1/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 28:1331cv Fed. Question: Other Civil Rights

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 

ALTON JONES, 

 Plaintiff, 

vs. 

U.S. BORDER PATROL 

AGENT GERARDO 

HERNANDEZ et al., 

 Defendants. 

 Case No.: 16-CV-1986-W(WVG) 

ORDER ON DISCOVERY 

DISPUTES OVER ANNOTATED 

MAP AND SOCIAL MEDIA 

POSTINGS

 Pending before the Court is the parties’ dispute over Defendants’ document 

production requests for an annotated map and social media postings. Plaintiff submitted 

the unredacted annotated map to the Court for in camera review, and the Court 

convened an informal teleconference with the parties’ attorneys and heard argument on 

July 28, 2017. The Court finds Plaintiff waived privileges as to the annotated map and 

orders production of the unredacted map. The Court further finds Defendants’ request 

for social media postings is overbroad and accordingly sustains Plaintiff’s objection. 

/ / / 

/ / / 

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I. DISCUSSION AND RULINGS

A. Annotated Map 

 1. Background 

 The first discovery dispute involves a map generated by Plaintiff’s Nike GPS 

fitness watch. The map depicts the area in which the events of this case transpired as 

well as Plaintiff’s route of travel that day. Plaintiff printed this map from the Nike 

website and used it during discussions with one of his attorneys in October 2014. The 

map contains several handwritten annotations by Plaintiff and two annotations by 

plaintiff’s counsel. 

 Plaintiff identified the disputed map in his initial disclosures, apparently intending 

to re-print the map and produce it without the annotations. However, when Plaintiff 

attempted to do so, he discovered that the map on the Nike website was different than 

the map he had initially printed. When Plaintiff responded to Defendants’ Request for 

Production of Documents (“RFP”) (Set One), he neither produced the annotated map 

nor provided a privilege log. 

 Defendants then noticed that the map was identified in Plaintiff’s initial 

disclosures but had not been produced and no privilege log had been provided. 

Defendants followed up multiple times and eventually discovered that the map 

contained Plaintiff’s own handwritten notes and also contained his attorney’s notes. 

This was contrary to Defendants’ understanding (based on Plaintiff’s counsel’s 

representation to them) that the map contained only attorneys’ notes. Plaintiff 

eventually opted to produce the original map, but redacted all of handwritten 

annotations. After multiple requests, Plaintiff also finally provided a privilege log and 

answered five questions Defendants posed about the nature of the document. However, 

Plaintiff produced this privilege log beyond the 30-day deadline set forth in Federal 

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Rule of Civil Procedure 34(b)(2)(C).1

 This dispute concerns whether Plaintiff must 

produce the map with some or all of the handwritten annotations unredacted. 

 2. Legal Standard 

 a. Work-Product Doctrine 

 “[A] party may not discover documents and tangible things that are prepared in 

anticipation of litigation or for trial by or for another party or its representative 

(including the other party’s attorney, consultant, surety, indemnitor, insurer, or agent).” 

Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(3)(A). The work product doctrine is a qualified protection 

limiting discovery of “documents and tangible things” prepared by a party or his or her 

representative in anticipation of litigation or trial. Admiral Ins. Co. v. U.S. Dist. Court 

for Dist. of Ariz., 881 F.2d 1486, 1494 (9th Cir. 1989); see also Upjohn Co., 449 U.S. at 

397-402; Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(3). The party claiming work product protection bears 

the burden of establishing that the work product doctrine applies. United States v. 

Richey, 632 F.3d 559, 566 (9th Cir. 2011). A party may obtain discovery of work 

product only on a showing of “substantial need” and an inability to obtain equivalent 

information from other sources. Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(3)(A)(ii). Even when a court 

orders disclosure of work product, “it must protect against disclosure of the mental 

impressions, conclusion, opinions, or legal theories of a party’s attorney or other 

representative concerning the litigation.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(3)(B). These 

materials—otherwise known as “opinion” work product—represent the “core types of 

work product” that the doctrine was designed to protect. See Republic of Ecuador v. 

Mackay, 742 F.3d 860, 870 n.3 (9th Cir. 2014). 

 b. Attorney-Client Privilege 

 “The attorney-client privilege protects confidential disclosures made by a client to 

an attorney in order to obtain legal advice, . . . as well as an attorney’s advice in 

 

1

 Unless otherwise noted, all further references to the Rules are to the Federal Rules of 

Civil Procedure. 

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response to such disclosures.” United States v. Ruehle, 583 F.3d 600, 607 (9th Cir. 

2009) (internal quotation and citation omitted). 

 Courts typically employ an eight-part test to determine whether the attorney-client 

privilege applies: “(1) Where legal advice of any kind is sought (2) from a professional 

legal adviser in his capacity as such, (3) the communications relating to that purpose, 

(4) made in confidence (5) by the client, (6) are at his instance permanently protected 

(7) from disclosure by himself or by the legal adviser, (8) unless the protection be 

waived.” Id. (quotation omitted). “Because it impedes full and free discovery of the 

truth, the attorney-client privilege is strictly construed.” Id. (quoting Martin, 278 F.3d at 

999). 

 c. Waiver 

 Responses and objections to request for production of documents are due within 

30 days of being served. Fed. R. Civ. P. 34(b)(2)(A). Withholding a document based 

on privilege requires the withholding party to (1) make an objection, Fed. R. Civ. P. 

34(b), that (2) “describe the nature of the documents, communications, or tangible 

things not produced or disclosed—and do so in a manner that, without revealing 

information itself privileged or protected, will enable other parties to assess the claim,” 

Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(5). This objection must be specific—not a generalized, boilerplate 

objection. Burlington N. & Santa Fe Ry. Co. v. U.S. Dist. Ct. for the Dist. of Mont., 408 

F.3d 1142, 1147 (9th Cir. 2005) (“Burlington”). 

 The Advisory Committee notes to Rule 26(b)(5) make clear that withholding 

otherwise discoverable materials on the basis that they are privileged or subject to the 

work product doctrine without notifying the other parties as provided in Rule 

26(b)(5)(A) “may be viewed as a waiver of the privilege or protection.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 

26(b)(5) Advisory Committee’s comment. The Ninth Circuit has expressly rejected “a 

per se waiver rule that deems a privilege waived if a privilege log is not produced 

within Rule 34’s 30-day time limit.” Burlington, 408 F.3d at 1149. 

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 In the Ninth Circuit, determining waiver is a case-by-case determination where the 

Court considers: (1) “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);” (2) “the timeliness of the objection and accompanying information about 

the withheld documents;” (3) “the magnitude of the document production;” and 

(4) ”other particular circumstances of the litigation that make responding to discovery 

unusually easy . . . or unusually hard.” Id. In evaluating these factors, the court is 

directed to apply them “in the context of a holistic reasonableness analysis” and not in a 

“mechanistic determination of whether the information is provided in a particular 

format.” Id. The ultimate intent here is “to forestall needless waste of time and 

resources, as well as tactical manipulation of the rules and the discovery process.” Id.

 3. Discussion 

 As an initial matter, the Court finds that the annotated map is the type of document 

that ordinarily could qualify as work product. Plaintiff and one of his attorneys made 

the annotations as they met and discussed future litigation. However, whether the 

attorney-client privilege applies is a closer question the Court need not address given 

the Court’s finding that Plaintiff waived any privilege or protection here.2

 

2 Burlington involved assertion of privileges and protections generally and the waiver of 

privileges and protections when a privilege log is not produced in a timely manner. In 

this context, Burlington discussed both the attorney-client privilege and the workproduct doctrine. See, e.g., 408 F.3d at 1147-48 (Rule 26(b)(5) “‘does not attempt to 

define for each case what information must be provided when a party asserts a claim of 

privilege or work product protection.’”) (quoting Rule26(b)(5)), 1148 (“[A]t least one 

circuit has refused to issue a writ of mandamus to a trial court, where the latter had 

ruled that untimeliness had destroyed the attorney-client privilege . . . .”). Thus, the 

Court’s waiver analysis applies to both, and the Court need not decide whether the 

annotated map also qualifies as attorney-client communications.

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 The first Burlington factor—the degree the assertion of privilege enables 

Defendants to assess the asserted privilege—does not favor waiver here. After Plaintiff 

failed to voluntarily produce a privilege log or explain the basis for any privilege or 

protection asserted as to the claimed privileges, Defendants asked him to provide 

responses to five questions about the annotated map. These questions included who 

wrote on the map, who was the recipient of the map and communications, and what was 

the subject matter of the communications. Plaintiff responded on July 17, 2017 and 

answered these questions. With respect to the subject matter, Plaintiff responded that 

the annotations involved “[t]he subject incident and incident location . . . written by 

[Plaintiff] and for the purpose of seeking legal advice and obtaining legal 

representation.” Defendants contend Plaintiff’s responses are inadequate and do not 

allow for reasonable assessment of the privilege or protection claims. The Court finds 

that although Plaintiff’s responses remain vague, they are sufficient. Without 

identifying the specific content of the annotations, Plaintiff’s responses sufficiently 

inform Defendants that he and his attorney made notes on a map during a meeting while 

he discussed his case and sought legal advice and representation. 

 The second Burlington factor—timeliness of the objection and accompanying 

information—favors a finding of waiver. Plaintiff’s initial response to Defendants’ 

RFPs was produced on June 19, 2017—32 days after Defendants’ RFPs issued. When 

Plaintiff responded, he failed to lodge any objection to production of the annotated map 

and failed to provide a privilege log. Thus, as an initial matter, Plaintiff failed to 

comply with the procedures set forth in Rules 26 and 34 by not providing a timely 

privilege log. He ultimately did not provide any sort of viable privilege log until July 

17, 2017—31 days after it was originally due. Although this delay is troubling, had 

untimeliness been Plaintiff’s only transgression here, the Court could potentially find no 

waiver occurred. However, what is most troubling in this case is Plaintiff’s conduct up 

to the July 17, 2017 privilege log production. Plaintiff failed to disclose the true nature 

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of the document, did not comply with his privilege log obligation, and then finally 

revealed the true nature of the document and provided a privilege log only after defense 

counsel pursued the matter and essentially forced Plaintiff to do so. 

 During this process, Plaintiff led defense counsel to believe that all of the 

annotations on the map were attorneys’ notes. At Plaintiff’s deposition on June 30, 

2017, Plaintiff’s counsel informed defense counsel that the map contained “[a]ttorney 

notes” without any indication that it also contained Plaintiff’s own notes. Counsel 

made this statement despite the fact that only two of the annotations on the map were 

made by counsel.3

 After the deposition, defense counsel followed up, noting in an 

email on July 7, 2017 that the map Plaintiff had identified in his initial disclosures had 

not been produced and no privilege log had been produced. On July 10, 2017, 

Plaintiff’s counsel responded that they were preparing supplemental responses that 

would “include the partially-redacted version of the printout (redacting the minimum 

necessary to protect privilege and work product).” Still, there was no mention of 

Plaintiff’s annotations on the map, and defense counsel remained under the 

impression—based on the representation made during the deposition—that the map 

contained only attorney notes. 

 Plaintiff then provided supplemental responses on July 10, 2017. In Plaintiff’s 

counsel’s email to defense counsel, she noted the annotated map contained “certain 

handwritten notes and symbols that represent privilege and work product . . .” and 

indicated Plaintiff had “redacted the minimum necessary to protect and preserve 

attorney-client privilege and attorney work product protection.” However, every

annotation on the map had been redacted, and Plaintiff continued to fail to clarify that 

 

3

 Had Plaintiff’s counsel been mistaken when she initially told defense counsel that the 

map contained attorneys’ notes only, counsel should have proactively corrected this 

mistake when she later reviewed the map and discovered it mostly contained Plaintiff’s 

own notes. 

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the map contained annotations made by anyone other than an attorney. Certainly 

Plaintiff’s cryptic reference to “certain handwritten notes” failed to clarify or correct 

any prior mistake or misrepresentation. And Plaintiff still did not provide a privilege 

log despite redacting the map and claiming privilege. This was 53 days beyond the date 

Defendants issued their RFPs. 

 On July 13, 2017, defense counsel responded to Plaintiff’s supplemental responses 

and specifically requested five categories of information related to Plaintiff’s redacted 

map. These categories included the type of information Defendants believed was 

necessary to enable them to assess Plaintiff’s claim. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(5)(A)(ii). 

One of Plaintiff’s four attorneys responded on July 13, 2017, stating that she was 

travelling and would respond at a later date. 

 On July 17, 2017, another Plaintiff’s attorney responded to Defendants’ email that 

requested the five categories of information. In this response, and for the first time, 

Plaintiff informed Defendants that the map also contained Plaintiff’s own annotations. 

In fact, the nature of the annotations seems to have changed. While Plaintiff had 

previously represented that the map contained only attorneys’ notes, he now represented 

that the “author” of the redacted privileged communications was himself. Then, 

Plaintiff relegated his attorneys’ annotations to secondary status: “Also redacted are 

notes of Plaintiff’s counsel . . . .” In the same email, Plaintiff’s counsel noted that her 

team had not previously objected to production of the annotated map because they 

“believed they would be able to obtain a clean copy” but had not been able to do so 

because the Nike account no longer contained the map as it appeared in the annotated 

version. Plaintiff’s responses to Defendants’ five categories of information for the first 

time provided Defendants information that could assist their assessment of his claims. 

This was 61 days after Defendants’ RFPs issued and 31 days after Plaintiff’s objections 

were due. 

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 As the Court noted above, were this simply a matter of untimely objections and 

privilege log production, the Court may have been amenable to finding Plaintiff had not 

waived any privilege or protection. However, the Court is troubled by what appears to 

be an attempt to hide the ball from the defense. If discovery is withheld based on any 

privilege or protection, such should be stated in a privilege log to provide the other side 

an opportunity to meet and confer and possibly challenge that claimed privilege.4

 

Parties are not permitted to unilaterally decide that a privilege applies, withhold a 

document, not notify the other side, and instead produce a sanitized version of a thenexisting responsive document at a later date. Here, the annotated map should have been 

included in a privilege log from the beginning regardless of whether a clean copy was 

going to be obtained. It was a document that existed at the time Defendants’ RFPs 

issued, was responsive to those requests, and was in Plaintiff’s possession. Plaintiff’s 

admission that he believed he could print and produce a “clean” copy of the map only 

further troubles the Court. Even if Plaintiff had a clean copy of the map in his 

possession, both copies of the map would have been responsive. In that scenario, 

Plaintiff could withhold the annotated map, but only after following the proper 

procedure set forth in Rule 34. The clean copy of the map would not have absolved 

Plaintiff of this obligation with respect to an otherwise responsive document. 

 

4

 Rule 34(a)(1) authorized Defendants to ask for responsive documents in Plaintiff’s 

“possession, control, or custody.” There is no dispute that the annotated map was in 

Plaintiff’s possession, custody, and control at the time Defendants propounded their 

RFPs. And there is no dispute that it was in fact responsive. Accordingly, Plaintiff’s 

had the affirmative obligation and duty under Rule 34(b)(2)(C) “to alert other parties to 

the fact that documents have been withheld and thereby facilitate an informed 

discussion of the objection.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 34 (Committee Notes on Rules—2015 

Amendment) (emphasis added). The annotated map was a then-existing responsive 

document that was subject to Rule 34’s produce-or-object provision. The “clean” copy 

of the map did not exist. Plaintiff withheld the annotated map without formal notice 

and forced Defendants to investigate the matter to discover the full breadth of the 

situation on their own. 

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 Plaintiff had a responsibility to follow the proper protocol when asserting a 

privilege with respect to a responsive document that was in his possession. Plaintiff did 

not follow this procedure at all and capitulated and finally provided information about 

the nature of the document only after defense counsel pursued the matter and 

specifically asked for five categories of information that could help Defendants assess 

Plaintiff’s claimed privilege. This was not Defendants’ responsibility; Plaintiff should 

have provided this information ab initio. But it seems that Plaintiff provided this 

information only when he was backed into a corner as a result of not being able to reprint another copy of the map. This is troubling to the Court.

 Lest it be argued that the transgressions here are trivial, they certainly are not. As 

the Advisory Committee notes to Rule 26 caution, “[t]o withhold materials without such 

notice [under Rule 26(b)(5)] is contrary to the rule, subjects the party to sanctions under 

Rule 37(b)(2), and may be viewed as a waiver of the privilege or protection.” 

Burlington, 408 F.3d at 1147 (quoting Rule 26(b)(5) advisory committee’s note (1993 

Amendments)) (emphasis added). Moreover, Plaintiff’s attempts to produce a “clean” 

copy of the map and withhold the annotated copy run afoul of the spirit of the civil 

discovery. “The purpose of discovery is to provide a mechanism for making relevant 

information available to the litigants . . . . Thus the spirit of the rules is violated when 

advocates attempt to use discovery tools as tactical weapons rather than to expose the 

facts and illuminate the issues . . . .” Id. at 1148-49 (quoting same). Here, Plaintiff did 

not attempt to use the discovery rules themselves a tactical weapon. Rather, he failed to 

comply with the rules and attempted to withhold the true nature of the annotated map 

until Defendants forced his hand. Rather than illuminate the privilege issue, Plaintiff 

muddied the waters, attempted mightily not to illuminate the nature of the document, 

and then grudgingly revealed its true nature after multiple follow-up attempts by 

defense counsel. This is not in line with either the letter or the spirit of the rules that 

govern the civil discovery process. 

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 The Court finds that Plaintiff’s compliance with the privilege log and objection 

provisions in Rules 26 and 34 was untimely. More importantly, the reason behind the 

untimely compliance is significant. Defense counsel had to extract the privilege log 

information from Plaintiff after his continued failure to correct his counsel’s prior 

misrepresentation of the nature of the annotations, failure to produce a privilege log, 

and apparent intention to not produce the annotated map at all save for the fortuitous 

inability to reprint a “clean” copy from the Nike website. These factors exacerbate 

what would otherwise have been simple untimeliness. Thus, the second Burlington

factor weighs heavily in favor of waiver. 

 The third Burlington factor—the magnitude of the document production—also 

favors waiver, as the document at issue consists of one page. Producing it would not be 

burdensome in any way. The fourth factor also favors waiver. There are no other 

particular circumstances of the litigation that make responding to discovery unusually 

hard. However, given that the annotated map is a single page, its disclosure is 

unusually easy. Moreover, the nature of the annotations themselves does not render 

their disclosure unusually hard or damaging. The annotations are benign and barely—if 

at all—reveal anything about the case. Rather, the annotations for the most part simply 

identify locations on the map that are obvious based on the map itself. And the only 

two notes the plaintiff’s counsel made simply identify the locations of objects or events 

that are not particularly remarkable and reveal the locations of objects or events that 

Defendants most certainly already know about.5

 

5 Because the annotations appear so trivial, the Court is perplexed why Plaintiff so 

vehemently seeks to withhold the seemingly trivial annotations on the map—other than 

the fact that they may technically be protected by the attorney-client privilege or work 

product doctrine, of course. However, not every fight deserves to be fought with the 

same fervor, and parties should apply discretion to discern which battle is actually 

worth it rather than fight every one for the sake of “the fight.” This dispute appears to 

be precisely the type where some discretion could have avoided any dispute at all, this 

Court’s involvement, and this Order.

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B. Plaintiff’s Social Media Postings 

 Defendants’ RFP No. 18 asked for all of Plaintiff’s social media postings dating 

back to 2010 without regard to subject matter or content. During the discovery 

conference, defense counsel agreed that this RFP was overbroad and stated a narrower 

RFP would be propounded. Accordingly, no further discussion on this matter is 

necessary, and the Court sustains Plaintiff’s objection that RFP No. 18 is overbroad. 

IV. CONCLUSION

Plaintiff shall produce the unredacted annotated map no later than August 23, 

2017. 

IT IS SO ORDERED.

DATED: August 16, 2017 

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