Opinion ID: 3010834
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: waiver of the work product protection

Text: In examining the district court's holding that Capano waived his work product privilege, we use an abuse of discretion standard of review. Cf. Livingstone v. North Belle Vernon Borough, 91 F.3d 515, 524 (3d Cir. 1996), cert. 5 denied, 117 S.Ct. 1311 (1997) (using an abuse of discretion standard to review a waiver of an attorney-client privilege).2 The work-product doctrine, first recognized by the Supreme Court in Hickman v. Taylor, 329 U.S. 495, 67 S.Ct. 385 (1947), shelters the mental processes of the attorney, providing a privileged area within which he can analyze and prepare his client's case. United States v. Nobles, 422 U.S. 225, 238, 95 S.Ct. 2160, 2170 (1975). The privilege thus promotes the adversarial system by protecting the confidential nature of materials prepared by attorneys in anticipation of litigation and enabl[es] attorneys to prepare cases without fear that their work product will be used against their clients. Westinghouse Elec. Corp. v. Republic of the Philippines, 951 F.2d 1414, 1428 (3d Cir. 1991). This protection also can extend to materials prepared by an attorney's agent, if that agent acts at the attorney's direction in creating such documents. See Nobles, 422 U.S. at 238-39, 95 S.Ct. at 2170. The attorney work product privilege, however, is not absolute, and it may be waived. See id. at 239, 95 S.Ct. at 2170. Thus, we have held that a party may waive the attorney work product privilege by disclosing protected documents in certain circumstances. See Westinghouse, 951 F.2d at 1428-29. It has been held that a disclosure sufficient to waive the work product protection does not have to be intentional; therefore inadvertent or unintentional disclosures of protected materials also might result in the waiver of the privilege. See, e.g., Carter v. Gibbs, 909 F.2d 1450, 1451 (Fed. Cir. 1990). However, such a disclosure does not automatically forfeit the attorney work product privilege. In determining whether a party has waived the privilege through an inadvertent or involuntary disclosure, courts consider, among other _________________________________________________________________ 2. Capano argues in his brief that we should exercise plenary review. Br. at 18-19. We disagree but observe that even exercising plenary review we would reach the same result. While we will assume without deciding that in some circumstances we would exercise plenary review to determine if the work product privilege had been waived, we think that it is appropriate to use an abuse of discretion standard here because the weighing of various considerations leads us to affirm the district court's order. 6 factors, the steps taken by a party to remedy the disclosure and any delay in doing so. See, e.g., United States v. Keystone Sanitation Co., 885 F. Supp. 672, 676 (M.D. Pa. 1994); cf. United States v. de la Jara, 973 F.2d 746, 749-50 (9th Cir. 1992) (holding that a defendant waived his attorney-client privilege with regards to a seized letter because he waited six months after the seizure to assert his privilege). But see Carter, 909 F.2d at 1451 (holding that even an inadvertent disclosure automatically waives the attorney work product privilege, because to do otherwise would do no more than seal the bag from which the cat has already escaped.). Thus, in the case of inadvertent or involuntary disclosures, the party asserting the work product doctrine must pursue all reasonable means to restore the confidentiality of the materials and to prevent further disclosures within a reasonable period to continue to receive the protection of the privilege. It is undisputed that neither Capano nor his attorneys knew of the subpoena until after it had been issued and the file had been seized. Consequently, Capano had no opportunity to challenge the involuntary disclosure of the file by seeking to quash the subpoena; instead, his only remedy was to assert the attorney work product privilege after the United States took possession of the file. Capano clearly made a timely assertion of the attorney work product privilege to the government; his attorney mailed a letter asserting the privilege to the United States within eight days after the seizure. However, as of November 26, 1996, Capano and his attorneys were on notice that the United States disagreed with the assertion of the privilege and would not relinquish the file voluntarily. In spite of this knowledge, Capano waited until March 14, 1997, tofile a motion to compel the return of the seized file. Thus, the determinative issue on this appeal is whether Capano's initial assertion of the privilege to the United States sufficiently protected his rights or whether his failure to seek a judicial ruling on the issue more promptly waived the privilege. We hold that the district court did not abuse its discretion determining that even though Capano timely notified the United States of his claim of the privilege and 7 continued to assert it in subsequent communications, these assertions were insufficient to protect his rights. The United States was a direct adversary of Capano, and its continued use of the documents directly undermined the purpose of the attorney work product privilege of protecting confidential documents prepared in anticipation of litigation from a party's adversary. Capano's repeated admonitions to his adversary to return the protected documents did not prevent the continuing harm resulting from the disclosure. Judicial enforcement of the privilege was the only remedy that Capano could have obtained which would have foreclosed the United States from further use of the seized file. Without such judicial vindication, the United States was free to continue to utilize the documents, thereby negating their confidential character. In the case of such an involuntary disclosure, a reasonable person would not only inform his or her adversary of the breach of the privilege, but also would seek a judicial determination of the controversy if his or her adversary took an opposing stance. Merely asserting the privilege to an adversary is not sufficient to protect the privilege in these circumstances inasmuch as the adversary has possession of the materials claimed to be privileged and thus can make use of them. Moreover, if the district court countenanced Capano's delay in judicially asserting his privilege and then upheld his claim of privilege, the grand jury's use of the seized file potentially could have tainted its investigation.3 In short, when a party's adversary has obtained possession of a party's work product and refuses to recognize the work product privilege, the party asserting the privilege must move expeditiously for relief particularly _________________________________________________________________ 3. In his brief Capano asserts that during the four months before he served his motion, the government had possession of the disputed documents and is believed to have used these documents in the grand jury proceedings. Br. at 29. He reasons from this belief that there was no prejudice to the Government as a result of the four-month period between [his] initial assertion of the . . . work product privilege[ ] and the filing of his motion. Id. While the grand jury in fact did not indict Capano, clearly his argument overlooks the taint problem we have identified. 8 where, as here, the party asserting the privilege does not even claim that he had reason to believe that the adversarial party was not making use of the work product. Indeed, in his brief Capano asserts that in this entire period, i.e., between November 12, 1996, and March 14, 1997, when he filed his motion, the govenment used these documents to further its grand jury investigation. Br. at 15-16. While we cannot set an exact time within which such a motion must be made, we hold that the district court did not abuse its discretion in holding that Capano waived the privilege as we are satisfied that Capano acted unreasonably in waiting nearly four months to seek a judicial vindication of his assertion of the privilege. Capano contends that SEC v. Lavin, 111 F.3d 921 (D.C. Cir. 1997), supports his position that his assertion of the privilege to the United States sufficiently protected his rights. In Lavin, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sought to obtain copies of tape recordings of conversations between a husband and a wife. These recordings were made by and were in the possession of the husband's employer, Bankers Trust Company (Bankers Trust). See id. at 924. Initially, Bankers Trust had submitted these tapes to the Federal Reserve Board (Board) as part of a production request pursuant to the Board's examination powers. When Bankers Trust notified Lavin, the husband, that it had relinquished the tapes to the Board, he immediately asserted his marital communications privilege and requested that Bankers Trust assert it on his behalf to the Board. Bankers Trust and Lavin subsequently entered into an agreement whereby Bankers Trust would give him the opportunity to challenge any further requests seeking the release of the tapes. However, Lavin did not institute any legal proceedings against Bankers Trust to obtain the tapes. Subsequently, the SEC sought the disclosure of the tapes, and Lavin asserted his marital communications privilege. In considering whether the privilege had been waived, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held that Lavin had no obligation to initiate any legal proceedings against Bankers Trust to protect the conversations absent a concrete threat of further 9 disclosure. Id. at 931. There was no such threat in Lavin's case, because Bankers Trust continued to abide by its agreement. In fact, Lavin had intervened successfully in an unrelated civil suit to assert his marital communications privilege with respect to the tapes. See id. at 924-25, 931. The court also noted that taking reasonable precautions to preserve the confidentiality of privileged materials does not require gaining physical possession in cases such as this where . . . attempts to gain such possession would have been futile because the tapes were not the property of [Lavin]. Id. at 932. Thus, Capano argues that like Lavin, he should not have been forced to seek an immediate judicial determination regarding the return of his file, because the disclosure already had occurred and no threat of future disclosures existed. Aside from the obvious differences in the privileges at issue and the purposes behind them, the facts of Lavin differ substantially from the present case. In Lavin, Lavin took active measures to assure that no one beyond the owner of the recordings, Bankers Trust, had access to them. More importantly, Lavin took legal action against any potential adversary that sought to obtain the recordings, and the entity in possession of the tapes, Bankers Trust, was not such an adversary. Capano was in a more difficult position than Lavin, because the privilege already had been breached by the seizure, and his adversary already had access to the documents. Thus, unlike Lavin, Capano was harmed immediately by the initial disclosure as it was to his direct adversary and not to a third party. Repeated communications by Capano asserting the privilege to his adversary were insufficient to prevent further harm; only timely intervention by a court could accomplish that objective. Therefore, we reiterate that the district court did not abuse its discretion in determining that Capano waived his attorney work product privilege with regard to the seized documents by failing to file a timely motion to compel their return. Within a few weeks after the seizure of thefile, Capano was on notice both of the seizure and of the government's unwillingness to recognize his attorney work product privilege with regard to the seized file. Yet, he 10 waited nearly four months to seek a judicial vindication of his claim of privilege. This delay is inconsistent with the purpose behind the attorney work product privilege, and thus the district court did not abuse its discretion in determining that Capano's delay waived the privilege. In view of the aforesaid, we will affirm the order of June 27, 1997. 11