Court Opinion

ID: 9476037
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:46:28.166993+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:06.202330
License: Public Domain

JOHN R. GIBSON, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
The court today correctly concludes that individual case reserves set by Searle’s attorneys are protected as mental impressions, thoughts, and conclusions under the opinion work product doctrine. It then concludes that averages and aggregates derived from these reserves are not protected. There is a deep inconsistency in protecting the parts but determining that the sum of the parts and calculations based upon the protected figures are not protected.
The court properly reasons that because the Searle attorneys’ specific case reserve figures “embody the attorney’s [sic] estimate of anticipated legal expenses, settlement value, length of time to resolve the litigation, geographic considerations, and other factors,” they reveal the attorneys’ mental impressions concerning Searle’s pending litigation and are therefore protected opinion work product. Ante at 401. The court then denies protection to the risk management documents, which were derived from the nondiscoverable mental impressions of Searle’s attorneys and, as the special master found, “arguably [give the] plaintiffs some insight into Searle’s attorneys’ thought processes of setting reserves.” Report I of Special Master, Simon v. G.D. Searle & Co., No. 4-80-160, at 5-6 (D.Minn. Aug. 22, 1984). In allowing discovery of the risk management documents, the court fails to consider the full import of the mental impression/opinion work product doctrine, which gives virtually absolute protection to both the mental impressions of Searle’s attorneys — as contained in the specific case reserve figures and necessarily reflected in the risk management documents — and the mental impressions of Searle’s representatives, as contained in the risk management reports.
Since the Supreme Court’s decision in Hickman v. Taylor, 329 U.S. 495, 67 S.Ct. 385, 91 L.Ed. 451 (1947), the courts have recognized that particular solicitude is given mental impression/opinion work product as contrasted to the ordinary work product protection accorded other documents and materials prepared in anticipation of litigation. In Upjohn Co. v. United States, 449 U.S. 383, 101 S.Ct. 677, 66 L.Ed.2d 584 (1981), the Supreme Court recognized mental impression/opinion work product as “deserving special protection” under Rule 26. Id. at 400,101 S.Ct. at 688. The Court considered, but found unnecessary to decide, whether any showing of necessity could ever overcome the protection afforded such work product. It recognized, however, that simply showing “substantial need and inability to obtain the equivalent without undue hardship” is not sufficient. Id. at 401, 101 S.Ct. at 688. In Shelton v. American Motors Corp., 805 F.2d 1323 (8th Cir.1986), we observed that the work product doctrine protects not only materials obtained or prepared in anticipation of litigation, “but also the attorney’s mental impressions, including thought processes, opinions, conclusions, and legal theories.” Id. at 1328; see also Sporck v. Peil, 759 F.2d 312, 316 (3d Cir.) (“Rule 26(b)(3) recognizes the distinction between ‘ordinary’ and ‘opinion’ work product first articulated by *406the Supreme Court in Hickman v. Taylor”), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 106 S.Ct. 232, 88 L.Ed.2d 230 (1985); In re Murphy, 560 F.2d 326, 336 (8th Cir.1977) (“opinion work product enjoys a nearly absolute immunity and can be discovered only in very rare and extraordinary circumstances”). The court today fails to give full weight to the special protection accorded mental impression/opinion work product.
In the present case, we are asked to protect mental processes that go to the essence of the lawyer’s expertise — establishing the value of a legal claim and the fees and expenses that may be incurred in its defense. The litigation’s ultimate cost to the client has great significance in determining whether a lawsuit will be tried or settled and, if settled, for what amount. Establishing the value of a claim is analytically complex, requiring an assessment of the body of evidence and the particular legal issues involved in each case, as well as an evaluation of the case’s strengths and weaknesses. It is one of the more challenging and difficult tasks a lawyer confronts. In Work Product of the Rules-makers, 53 Minn.L.Rev. 1269 (1969), Professor Edward H. Cooper discusses the importance of an attorney’s private evaluation of a claim in facilitating the bargaining process inherent in our system of justice:
Some of the areas in which the work product doctrine forecloses discovery are easily comprehended * * * as well. One obvious example is the need for protection against forced revelation of a party’s evaluation of his case; as long as voluntary settlement is encouraged, it would be an intolerable intrusion on the bargaining process to allow one party to take advantage of the other’s assessment of his prospects for victory and an acceptable settlement figure.
Id. at 1283.
The special master’s report states that the aggregate reserve figures may give some insight into the mental processes of the lawyers in setting specific case reserves. This is inevitable, considering that these aggregates and averages are based upon the attorneys’ evaluations of the value of specific claims. Notably, this is not a situation where mental impressions are merely contained within and comprise a part of another document and can easily be redacted. Instead, the aggregate and average figures are derived from and necessarily embody the protected material. They could not be formulated without the attorneys’ initial evaluations of specific legal claims. Thus, it is impossible to protect the mental impressions underlying the specific case reserves without also protecting the aggregate figures.
Apparently, the court reasons that if an attorney’s mental impressions are revealed only indirectly and in a diluted manner, they are not protected as opinion work product. See ante at 401-02 & n. 3. This, however, has never been used as a criteria for applying the opinion work product doctrine. In Shelton v. American Motors Corp., supra, we held that an attorney could not be compelled to acknowledge whether specific corporate documents existed because such acknowledgments would reveal her mental processes, which are protected under the opinion work product doctrine. Id. at 1329. The selection of documents involves a substantially less complex mental process than does arriving at a case reserve figure. In selecting documents, an attorney assesses a document’s relevance and materiality to the legal issues in the case, and considers its admissibility. This analysis stops short of the weighing and evaluating necessary to determine case reserves. Yet, in Shelton we protected this information, for the opinion work product doctrine does not merely protect materials that, as the majority suggests, directly reveal an attorney’s undiluted mental impressions. Instead, the doctrine is premised on values fundamental to the American scheme of justice and protects information that even “tends to reveal the attorney’s mental processes.” Upjohn Co., 449 U.S. at 399, 101 S.Ct. at 687. The risk management documents certainly fall within this protected ambit. The relationship between the attorneys’ mental impressions and these documents is no less tenuous than the relationship between the attorney’s mental impressions and the in*407formation we held nondiscoverable in Shelton. See also Sporck, 759 F.2d at 315-17 (selection of documents is in the “highly protected category of opinion work product”).
The court is equally in error in focusing solely on the mental impressions of Searle’s lawyers. While the court protects the mental impression/opinion work product concerning the attorneys’ evaluation of the reserve necessary for each lawsuit, it fails to grant similar protection to the risk management department’s opinion work product concerning the aggregate reserve necessary for the Cu-7 litigation. I find no basis in Rule 26(b)(3) for this distinction. Rule 26(b)(3) requires a court to “protect against disclosure of the mental impressions, conclusions, opinions, or legal theories of an attorney or other representative of a party concerning the litigation.” Fed. R.Civ.P. 26(b)(3) (emphasis added). Thus, protected work product is not confined to information or materials gathered or assembled by a lawyer. Diversified Indus., Inc. v. Meredith, 572 F.2d 596, 603, rev’d in part on other grounds, 572 F.2d 606 (8th Cir.1977). Instead, it includes materials gathered by any consultant, surety, indemnitor, insurer, agent or even the party itself. Fed.R.Civ.P. 26(b)(3). The only question is whether the mental impressions were documented, by either a lawyer or nonlawyer, in anticipation of litigation. Here, in the face of pending litigation, the risk management group monitored, controlled, and anticipated the costs of the litigation. The group compiled the individual reserve figures established by Searle’s attorneys and analyzed them in light of a number of variables to arrive at aggregate reserve figures. This is no less a mental impression concerning Searle’s litigation than were the attorneys’ thoughts in arriving at individual reserve figures.
The court concludes that the risk management documents cannot qualify for work product protection because they were not prepared in anticipation of litigation. It reasons that “Searle’s business involves litigation,” and, therefore, the risk management documents are for business planning purposes. Ante at 401. The court thus concludes that the risk management documents fall into the “ordinary course of business” exception to the work product doctrine. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 26(b)(3) advisory committee note. This analysis, however, causes the exception to swallow the rule and makes the anticipation-of-litigation test meaningless as it concerns materials prepared by a defendant’s employees.
First, we cannot authorize discovery of documents containing representatives’ mental impressions concerning pending litigation simply because the documents also serve a business purpose. It is difficult to imagine a document that is generated by a party’s nonlawyer representatives in anticipation of litigation that does not also have some business purpose; the purposes are not mutually exclusive. Under the court’s analysis, almost every document prepared by a nonlawyer is subject to discovery despite Rule 26(b)(3)’s concern with protecting opinion work product of both the lawyer and nonlawyer. See id. (“Subdivision (b)(3) reflects the trend of the cases by requiring a special showing, not merely as to materials prepared by an attorney, but also as to materials prepared in anticipation of litigation or preparation for trial by or for a party or any representative acting on his behalf.”) If all such records were discoverable, a business would be seriously impaired in calculating and recording the financial aspects of litigation or in taking other necessary corporate action regarding the litigation. Of course, just as not every document an attorney prepares concerning pending litigation is protected opinion work product, neither is every business document prepared by a nonlawyer. The determination, however, should not hinge on whether the material has an ancillary business purpose.
Second, in the present case, the business purposes of the documents were to keep track of, control, and plan for the costs of Searle’s pending products liability litigation. Only by concluding that Searle is in the business of litigation can the court convert these litigation-oriented documents into business planning documents. The court reaches just this conclusion, however, *408when it reasons that “Searle’s business involves litigation, just as it involves accounting, marketing, advertising, sales, and many other things.” Ante at 401. In eroding the protection Rule 26(b)(3) affords, the court confronts Searle with a dilemma of Catch-22 proportions: if Searle were not involved in litigation, Rule 26(b)(3) would have no application, but because Searle is involved in litigation, the ordinary course of business business exception applies. Thus, litigation, the event that triggers application of the rule, also triggers application of the exception.
Moreover, when considered within the increasingly common context of mass products liability litigation, the aggregate and average figures may take on even greater significance. Today’s products liability litigation often involves hundreds of lawsuits against one or more corporate defendants based upon a single or related products. The plaintiffs in these cases usually join forces and are represented by organized counsel. The defense, if not unified, is usually coordinated. Settlements can be negotiated so as to dispose of the claims of all or several plaintiffs at once. See, e.g., 3A L. Frumer & M. Friedman, Products Liability § 46A.07[1] (1986); Rubin, Mass Torts and Litigation Disasters, 20 Ga.L. Rev. 429, 431 (1986) (Agent Orange class estimated to include between 600,000 and 2.4 million plaintiffs; 4,500 plaintiffs’ lawyers settled claims for $180,000,000); Vairo, Multi-Tort Cases: Cause for More Darkness on the Subject, or a New Role for Federal Common Law, 54 Fordham L.Rev. 167,170 n. 6 (1985) (settlement fund established to dispose of 680 asbestos claims). Just as a specific reserve figure gives an opponent an unfair advantage in settlement negotiations, an aggregate reserve figure would give attorneys representing a group of opponents an equally unfair advantage. In this instance, the cases of forty plaintiffs with claims based on the Cu-7 have been consolidated for discovery in the Minnesota district court. Material that may be of questionable value in one case becomes more meaningful when considered in the context of a number of cases. We would be naive not to recognize the sophisticated analysis that is possible in this day of the computer. Comparison between different groups of cases and periods of time conceivably could give one party substantial insight into the thought processes of the other. Therefore, when the aggregate and average figures are produced for attorneys representing a large group of opposing litigants and are examined with reference to the entire group, the opposition obtains information containing the Searle attorneys’ mental processes that is much less diluted and indirect than the court acknowledges. When we deal with so sensitive a mental process as the calculation of individual case reserves, the foundation for all of the aggregates and averages, Rule 26(b)(3), Upjohn, Shelton, and Murphy mandate that we accord this material special protection. We fail to do so when we make the aggregate and average figures available to the opponent.
Significantly, Searle is defending not one but rather hundreds of Cu-7 lawsuits. See Thornton, Intrauterine Devices, Trial, Nov. 1986, at 44, 46 (Searle defending more than 600 Cu-7 lawsuits). Searle is undoubtedly concerned with each lawsuit, and the court properly recognizes that the Searle attorneys’ mental impressions concerning each lawsuit are protected. Searle’s greater concern, however, is its liability exposure and the costs related to defending this aggregate of lawsuits. When subjected to mass tort litigation, a defendant should be allowed to confidentially analyze the litigation as a whole, plan for its defense, and compare the costs of settlement with the costs of proceeding through trial. The aggregate and average reserves play an essential and unique role in these activities. By requiring Searle to share its assessments with its adversaries, the court unfairly hinders Searle’s ability to organize its defense.
A party, in managing its litigation, should not be forced to provide materials to its opponent that necessarily reflect its lawyers’ mental impressions regarding the litigation and contain its agents’ mental impressions concerning the cost of the litigation. By concluding that the risk manage*409ment documents are discoverable because they only indirectly reflect the attorneys’ impressions and because they were created for business planning purposes, the court makes it extremely hazardous for a business to finance and plan for its defense. The incidental effect of this decision could be the failure of litigants to properly document and consider all the factors that bear upon the decision to try or settle lawsuits. Cf. Hickman v. Taylor, 329 U.S. at 511, 101 S.Ct. at 393 (“Were such materials open to opposing counsel on mere demand, much of what is now put down in writing would remain unwritten.”).
This is not a case where there has been limited discovery. Searle has produced over 500,000 documents. Those documents based on the mental impressions of its lawyers and representatives concerning litigation strategy and costs, which the court today admits may be of limited value, should not be the subject of discovery.