Source: https://www.markmigdal.com/2017/07/inadvertent-document-productions-and-the-threat-of-attorney-disqualification/
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 04:17:21+00:00

Document:
Imagine a scenario in which a particularly obnoxious opposing counsel dumps 10,000 pages of documents on your doorstep three weeks late and the day before a hearing on a motion to compel. Seven hours later, frustrated and bleary-eyed from mind-numbing review, you stumble across an e-mail from opposing counsel to his client, with the subject line “case strategy.” While thoughts of waiver may begin dancing excitedly in your head, you must tread carefully; you have unwittingly begun a potentially self-destructive journey into uncharted waters. If you attempt to gain any advantage from counsel’s “mistaken” disclosure of this document, you face the strong possibility of disqualification.
The specter of inadvertent disclosure of privileged documents looms large over the psyche of an attorney engaged in a high-volume document production. The sheer quantity of discovery is capable of quickly overwhelming any lawyer or paralegal, and unfortunately, inadvertent disclosure of privileged documents is becoming more common. Whether such an inadvertent disclosure constitutes a waiver has already been thoroughly examined by a host of law review articles, journals, and periodicals, and will not be addressed any further here.1 This article examines how an attorney who receives a privileged production is expected to mitigate the damage to the adversary, and the potentially dire consequences if the attorney fails to do so.
Courts in Florida have high expectations from their attorneys; those expectations are not lessened for an attorney who receives inadvertently produced privileged documents. Indeed, attorneys who inadvertently produce the documents are capable of turning their inadvertence into a formidable weapon in the form of a motion to disqualify. Throughout the U.S., courts routinely express a reluctance to consider motions to disqualify. Choosing your attorney has been called “one of the most important associational freedoms that a person may have” — therefore, “a court must be sensitive to the competing interests of requiring an attorney’s professional conduct and preserving client confidences and, on the other hand, permitting a party to hire the counsel of choice.”2 The Second Circuit Court of Appeals in Government of India v. Cook Industries, Inc., 569 F.2d 727, 739 (2d Cir. 1978), has noted that “there is a particularly trenchant reason for requiring a high standard of proof on the part of one who seeks to disqualify his or her former counsel, for in disqualification matters we must be solicitous of a client’s right freely to choose counsel — a right which, of course, must be balanced against the need to maintain the highest standards of the profession.”3 The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Manning v. Waring, Cox, James, Sklar & Allen, 849 F.2d 222, 224 (6th Cir. 1988), made a similar observation: “the ability to deny one’s opponent the services of capable counsel, is a potent weapon.”4 Nonetheless, as discussed in more detail below, courts in Florida will not hesitate to disqualify an attorney who capitalizes on an adversary’s mistakes and gains an “informational advantage” as a result of an inadvertent document production.
With this framework in mind, it is time to turn to cases where attorneys receiving inadvertently produced documents did not act “promptly.” While the results in these cases are somewhat inconsistent, it is clear that the attorneys who received the privileged documents subjected themselves to the very real possibility of disqualification.
Like so many other ethical considerations in the practice of law, perceptions are of the utmost importance. Thus, how much of an advantage, if any, one party may gain over another we cannot measure. However, the possibility that such an advantage did accrue warrants resort to this drastic remedy for the sake of the appearance of justice, if not justice itself, and the public’s interest in the integrity of the judicial process.
Certainly this rule seems impossibly harsh. Taking the courts’ application of the ethical guidelines to its extreme, imagine a scenario where opposing counsel “inadvertently” forwards a memorandum on his entire case strategy to you. You open the e-mail and attachment, and quickly skim it before realizing what its contents actually contain. But before you fully appreciate that the e-mail is privileged, you read “will settle for $1 million” — a morsel that will no doubt be emblazoned in your mind for the remainder of the litigation. Surely you have now obtained a significant tactical advantage — no less than that gained by counsel in Borg-Warner Acceptance Corp. Must you now be disqualified due to your opponent’s carelessness? The answer is not clear. In fact, many courts have been more reluctant to tread on the “important associational freedom” of choosing one’s own counsel, focusing on the conduct of the receiving attorney rather than the possibility of an iota of advantage.
In cases where courts have determined that the opposing counsel did not exhibit “recalcitrance,” but rather was acting to protect “his clients’ interests where the question of privilege was not a simple one,”31 courts have been much more hesitant to disqualify counsel — despite the fact that the Third District Court of Appeal has already opined that “perceptions are of the utmost importance.”32 In April 2009, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida refused to disqualify counsel following its use of an inadvertently produced e-mail in a motion for sanctions.33 In Preferred Care Partners Holding Corp. v. Humana, Inc., 2009 WL 982456 (S.D. Fla. Apr. 10, 2009), defendant Humana, Inc., discovered 10,000 pages of documents that were otherwise responsive to a document request, approximately one month after the close of discovery, some of which were withheld or redacted on the basis of attorney-client privilege.34 In the interim, Humana provided plaintiff Preferred Care Partners (PCP) with a privilege log.35 Approximately two weeks after the document production and submission of the privilege log, Humana requested the return of two e-mails (the first batch) that it claimed it had inadvertently produced.36 PCP’s counsel advised Humana that it “segregated those documents from Humana’s production and placed them in a safe location,” but it intended “to submit the documents to the [c]ourt for in camera review.”37 Prior to filing its motion for in camera review, PCP filed a motion for sanctions, and attached to its motion the first batch and two additional arguably attorney-client privileged communications (the second batch), but with potential attorney-client communications redacted.38 Humana then requested the return of the second batch, which it claimed were attorney-client privileged documents.39 PCP refused, and Humana moved to disqualify counsel for PCP.
The prospect of your own disqualification after your opponent failed to do his or her job properly by producing privileged documents to you is distressing, but perhaps a necessary evil to preclude the appearance of an unfair advantage. Clearly, case law has put the onus on the receiving attorney to appropriately respond to his or her adversary’s inadvertent disclosure, despite the lofty platitudes often employed by courts in their desire to preserve the client’s choice of attorney whenever possible.
Based on Florida case law and the corresponding ethics rules, much of a court’s analysis of a motion to disqualify will turn on the conduct of the receiving attorney. Did the attorney attempt to use the document in some way to gain a tactical foothold? Did the attorney refuse to return the documents to his or her adversary? Did the attorney attempt to introduce the documents into the record?
The best practice for an attorney who receives an inadvertently produced document is to immediately stop reviewing the document upon realizing that it may be privileged, thereby preempting opposing counsel’s claim of an “informational advantage.” Do not share the document with anyone else in your firm. Immediately contact your adversary, preferably in writing, to inform that you believe he or she may have inadvertently produced documents to you. If the documents were produced in hard copy, do not e-mail, copy, or electronically store the documents, as the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure require immediate sequestration, destruction, or return of the documents. Rather, send the documents back to opposing counsel and allow counsel to determine whether he or she will be claiming a privilege. If the documents were sent to you electronically or on a compact-disk, inform opposing counsel that you have ceased your review of the documents and provide opposing counsel with the bates number of the offending documents. Then ask how counsel would like you to proceed. Most importantly, do not attempt to gain a tactical advantage as a result of the disclosure, or you face the prospect – at the very least — of an evidentiary hearing concerning the propriety of disqualification.
1 See, e.g., Matthew A. Reiber, Latching onto Laches: A Rules Based Alternative for Resolving Questions of Waiver Following the Inadvertent Production of Privileged Documents in Federal Court Actions, 38 N.M. L. Rev. 197 (2008); Audrey Rogers, New Insights on Waiver and the Inadvertent Disclosure of Privileged Materials: Attorney Responsibility as the Governing Precept, 47 Fla. L. Rev. 159 (1995); Robert J. Franco & Michael E. Prangle, The Inadvertent Waiver of Privilege, 26 Tort & Ins. L.J. 637 (1991); Alan Meese, Inadvertent Waiver of the Attorney-Client Privilege, 23 Creighton L. Rev. 513 (1990); Wesley M. Ayres, Attorney Client Privilege: The Necessity of Intent to Waive the Privilege in Inadvertent Disclosure Cases, 18 Pac. L.J. 59 (1986); James M. Grippando, Attorney-Client Privilege: Implied Waiver Through Inadvertent Disclosure of Documents, 39 U. Miami L. Rev. 511 (1985).
2 Kusch v. Ballard, 645 So. 2d 1035, 1036 (Fla. 4th D.C.A. 1994).
3 Government of India v. Cook Industries, Inc., 569 F.2d 737, 739 (2d Cir.1978).
4 Manning v. Waring, Cox, James, Sklar & Allen, 849 F.2d 222, 224 (6th Cir.1988).
5 Professional Ethics of The Florida Bar, Opinion 93-3.
6 See Rules Regulating The Florida Bar, 4-4.4(b).
10 Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(5)(B) (emphasis added).
11 Fed. R. Civ. P. 26, Advisory Committee’s Note (2006).
12 General Acc. Ins. Co. v. Borg-Warner Acceptance Corp., 483 So. 2d 505, 506 (Fla. 4th D.C.A. 1986).
15 Abamar, 698 So. 2d 276, 279 (Fla. 3d D.C.A. 1997).
21 Abamar Housing & Development v. Lisa Daly Lady DÃ©cor, Inc., 724 So. 2d 572, 573 (Fla. 3d D.C.A. 1998).
22 Id. (quoting Junger Utility & Paving Co., Inc. v. Myers, 578 So. 2d 1117 (Fla. 1st D.C.A. 1989)).
23 Id. at 573-4 (citations omitted) (emphasis added).
24 Id. at fn 2 (emphasis in original).
27 Atlas Air, 997 So. 2d 1117, 1119 (Fla. 3d D.C.A. 2008).
28 Id. (J. Rosenberg, concurring).
31 Applied Digital Solutions, Inc. v. Vasa, 941 So. 2d 404, 408 (Fla. 4th D.C.A. 2006).
32 Abamar, 724 So. 2d at 574.
33 Preferred Care Partners Holding Corp. v. Humana, Inc., 2009 WL 982456 (S.D. Fla. Apr. 10, 2009).
40 Id. See also Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b).
43 Applied Digital Solutions v. Vasa, 941 So. 2d 404, 407 (Fla. 4th D.C.A. 2006).
44 Kusch, 645 So. 2d at 1035-6.
47 Coral Reef of Key Biscayne Developers, Inc. v. Lloyd’s Underwriters at London, 911 So. 2d 155 (Fla. 3d D.C.A. 2005) (citing Abamar Housing & Dev., Inc. v. Lisa Daly Lady Decor, Inc., 724 So. 2d 572 (Fla. 3d D.C.A. 1998)).

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