Source: http://attorneyclientprivilege.mcguirewoods.com/chapter.aspx?ch=40
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 13:06:47+00:00

Document:
(analyzing protection for documents created in connection with the BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill; protecting as work product documents created by an expert who assisted in educating BP lawyers; "While the underlying facts are discoverable, the Fitzgerald [Expert] Reports do not lose their status as work product merely because they contain factual information.").
"Courts Wrestle with Work Product Protection for Interview-Related Documents: Part III"
In SFEG Corp. v. Blendtec, Inc., No. 3:15-0466, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 63738 (M.D. Tenn. May 13, 2016), plaintiff's lawyer interviewed defendant's former quality manager — taking interview notes, preparing a memorandum about the interview, drafting and later revising a proposed affidavit, and then arranging for an executed affidavit. Defendant sought the executed affidavit. The court noted that "there appears to be a split of authority among [Sixth Circuit] district courts on the issue." Id. at *5. Some courts hold "that a third party's affidavit, once signed by the affiant, is no longer attorney work product as a matter of law." Id. The other line of cases extend work product protection to affidavits lawyers prepare after an interview, because "the contents of that affidavit almost certainly will reveal 'the mental impressions, conclusions, opinions, or legal theories' of the lawyer." Id. (citation omitted). The court adopted the second approach — concluding that lawyers "almost certainly included in this draft affidavit those facts that counsel deemed significant to the legal theories applicable to the case." Id. at *6. Furthermore, "the character of such disclosure is not somehow changed at the moment the witness signs the affidavit." Id. at *7. But then the court inexplicably addressed whether defendant could overcome the applicable work product protection — thus apparently only extending fact rather than the stronger opinion work product protection to the executed affidavit.
It is difficult if not impossible to find consistent and useful principles from these and similar cases.
"Courts Wrestle with Work Product Protection for Interview-Related Documents: Part II"
In Manitowoc Co. v. Kachmer, Case No. 14-cv-9271, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 61503 (N.D. Ill. May 10, 2016), defendants sought the audio recordings of Manitowoc's outside lawyer's deposition preparation interviews of five employees who were later terminated. The court first rejected Manitowoc's privilege claim, because the interviewed employees were not in the protected "control group" under Illinois privilege law. The court also rejected the lawyer's opinion work product claims. After examining the transcripts in camera, the court found that the lawyer's "questions were simply not influential enough to take the Employees' responses out of the realm of a witness's factual assertions and into the realm of his own work product." Id. at *9-10. The court acknowledged that "[h]ad [the lawyer] taken the Employees' statements by hand, or summarized the interviews in his own words, or in some way filtered or recorded only what he perceived to be the most important or relevant parts of the Employees' statements, we would be much more inclined to believe that [the lawyer] had injected his own mental impressions or legal theories into the interviews." Id. at *10. But after finding opinion work product protection unavailable, the court then inexplicably found that the audio recordings (after redaction of lawyer's "later-inserted notes and impressions of the interviews") did not even deserve fact work product protection. Id. at *2 & *10-11.
Most courts take the same approach as the decision discussed in last week's Privilege Point — applying at least fact work product protection to such verbatim witness statements.
"Courts Wrestle with Work Product Protection for Interview-Related Documents: Part I"
Companies' lawyers frequently interview third-party witnesses. Companies' adversaries often seek the resulting interview transcripts, notes, summaries, reports, statements or affidavits — which can generate disputes over fact and opinion work product protection. The former can be overcome, so companies usually seek the absolute or nearly absolute opinion work product protection. Three federal court decisions issued over seven days in May highlight the confusing and divergent case law governing work product protection for interview-related documents.
In Hatamian v. Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., securities fraud defendant AMD moved to compel production of plaintiffs' investigator's "notes of interviews with confidential witnesses [former AMD employees], including 'Interview Reports.'" Case No. 14-cv-00226-YGR (JSC), 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 60551, at *4 (N.D. Cal. May 6, 2016). Plaintiffs called these documents "'classic work product,'" but AMD argued that the documents were unprotected "'verbatim recitation[s] of each witness's factual statement,'" without "'any attorney's mental impressions.'" Id. at ¶ 8 (internal citation omitted). The court held that "[i]nterview notes and witness summaries drafted by counsel are subject to attorney work product protection." Id. The court then indicated that interview notes "can be either factual work product, opinion work product, or both" — explaining that "[t]o the extent that the investigator's contemporaneous notes and interview reports reflect only verbatim witness statements, they are only factual work product." Id. at ¶ 18. Because the court concluded that defendant could not overcome the fact work product protection for the investigator's interview notes and reports, it did not have to decide if those documents deserved the more protective opinion work product protection.
This widely accepted approach does not make much sense. Interview notes or reports reflecting a witness's verbatim answer to a question such as "tell me what you know" presumably would deserve only fact work product protection. But the witness's verbatim answers to a long series of pointed and focused questions would seem to deserve opinion work product protection, if they reflect the interviewer's strategy.
Unlike the absolute attorney-client privilege, the work product doctrine offers two possible levels of protection. Lawyers' (and other client representatives') opinions deserve absolute or nearly absolute protection in most courts. In contrast, non-opinion fact work product provides only a qualified privilege — which an adversary can overcome by proving "substantial need" for the documents, and the inability to obtain their "substantial equivalent" without "undue hardship." Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(3)(A)(ii).
In United States ex rel. Landis v. Tailwind Sports Corp., Case No. 1:10-cv-00976 (CRC), 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 4610 (D.D.C. Jan. 12, 2015), the court addressed the work product protection level for litigation-related witness interview memoranda. In bicyclist Floyd Landis's qui tam action, Lance Armstrong sought to discover government agents' witness interview memoranda. The court first dealt with memoranda government agents prepared in their civil investigation of Armstrong. The court noted that even the memorandas' factual portions reciting the witnesses' statements had been "'sharply focused or weeded'" by lawyers (quoting In re Sealed Case, 124 F.3d 230, 236 (D.C. Cir. 1997). Id. at *5. The court therefore held that all the memoranda in question deserved opinion work product protection — because government lawyers "'shape[d] the topics that were covered' and 'frame[d] the questions that were asked.'" Id. at *9 (citation omitted). The court rejected Armstrong's discovery efforts, because the D.C. Circuit considers opinion work product "virtually never discoverable." Id. at *4.
The court then turned to witness memoranda government agents prepared during their now-closed criminal investigation of Armstrong — which the court described as "a different kettle of fish." Id. at *9. Next week's Privilege Point will discuss those memoranda.
Last week's Privilege Point discussed Lance Armstrong's unsuccessful attempt to discover witness interview memoranda government agents prepared during their civil investigation of Armstrong's misdeeds. United States ex rel. Landis v. Tailwind Sports Corp., 303 F.R.D. 429 (D.D.C. 2015).
Armstrong also sought witness memoranda from the government's now-closed criminal investigation. The court acknowledged the government's affidavits, stating that lawyers "set the general direction of the [criminal] investigation and the interviews." Id. at 432. But after an in camera review, the court concluded that "it does not appear that these attorneys focused the content of the memoranda themselves or participated in drafting them." Id. Instead, the memoranda "appear to be substantially verbatim agent summaries of open-ended discussions of issues relevant to the criminal investigation." Id. This meant that the memoranda only deserved fact work product protection, which Armstrong could overcome. However, the court allowed the government to "redact any portions of the memoranda that reflect opinion work product, such as attorney notes or highlighting." Id. at 433.
Lawyers seeking the higher level of opinion work product protection for their witness interview memoranda should (1) explicitly articulate any of their opinions in the memoranda, and (2) be prepared to prove that they "shaped" the interview topics and "framed" the questions whose answers the memoranda memorialized.
Analyzing work product protection for party or witness affidavits can involve several factors.
In Colon v. City of New York, No. 12-CV-9205 (JMF), 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 92483 (S.D.N.Y. July 8, 2014), the court assessed affidavits that a malicious prosecution plaintiff finalized, but had never filed, in his earlier criminal case. The court concluded that the work product doctrine applied — because the plaintiff had prepared the affidavits "in connection with his post-conviction litigation." Id. at *9. However, the court held that the defendant City could overcome the protection, because the 1999 affidavits contained "factual assertions made by the Plaintiff regarding events that occurred in 1989 and 1990." Id. The court pointed to "the length of time that has passed" since the events, and the City's possible use of the affidavits to impeach the plaintiff. Id. Two days later, another court dealt with draft affidavits. In Total E&P USA, Inc. v. Kerr-McGee Oil & Gas Corp., the defendants fought to discover drafts of the "near-identical" affidavits filed by several individual gas and oil royalty claimants. Civ. A. No. 09-6644, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 93881, at *8 (E.D. La. July 10, 2014). The court noted that a defense lawyer "admitted at the oral hearing that he seeks to review the 'back and forth process' between" the plaintiffs and their lawyer "while drafting the affidavits." Id. at *16. The court held that disclosing those drafts would "reveal the mental impressions and strategies of counsel for claimants," and thus found the draft affidavits immune from discovery as opinion work product. Id.
Lawyers assessing protections for party or witness affidavits must consider, among other things, the affiant's role (communications between a client affiant and her lawyer might deserve privilege as well as work product protection); the affidavit's status (some courts might find that the final version loses any privilege or work product protection); and lawyers' role in preparing draft affidavits (the more extensive the role, the more likely the privilege or the opinion work product doctrine is to apply).

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