Title: Merits Incentives v. Eighth Judicial Dist. Court
Citation: 127 Nev. Adv. Op. No. 63
Docket Number: 
State: Nevada
Issuer: Nevada Supreme Court
Date: October 6, 2011

Merits Incentives v. Eighth Judicial Dist. Court Annotate this Case Justia Opinion Summary In this breach of contract and fraud action, the attorney for Respondents reviewed confidential documents on disk that he received, unsolicited, from an anonymous source. Petitioners filed a motion to disqualify opposing counsel based on counsel's receipt of the confidential documents. The district court denied the motion, concluding that Petitioners failed to show that any of the documents, except a draft affidavit, contained on the disk were privileged. Petitioners then sought extraordinary writ relief to instruct the district court to disqualify the attorney and his firm, or, alternatively, to compel the district court to reconsider the disqualification motion. The Supreme Court denied the relief requested, holding (1) although there is no Nevada Rule of Professional Conduct that specifically governs an attorney's actions under these facts, the attorney in this case fulfilled any ethical duties by giving prompt notification to opposing counsel, soon after his receipt of the disk, through a Nev. R. Civ. P. 16.1 disclosure; and (2) the district court did not abuse its discretion in refusing to disqualify counsel even though one of the documents sent to counsel was privileged. Read more Want to stay in the know about new opinions from the Supreme Court of Nevada? Sign up for free summaries delivered directly to your inbox. Learn More › You already receive new opinion summaries from Supreme Court of Nevada. Did you know we offer summary newsletters for even more practice areas and jurisdictions? Explore them here . Download PDF