Court Opinion

ID: 9898049
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-11-14 19:28:06.065259+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:14:52.467459
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                                                                          FILED
                                                                      JANUARY 31, 2023
                                                                 In the Office of the Clerk of Court
                                                                WA State Court of Appeals, Division III

                 IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON
                                    DIVISION THREE

       PATTY HUR, individually,                      )         No. 38363-6-III
                                                     )
                            Respondent,              )
                                                     )
          v.                                         )
                                                     )
       LLOYD & WILLIAMS, LLC, a                      )
       Washington limited liability company;         )
       DEWIGHT L. HALL, JR., individually;           )         PUBLISHED OPINION
       and TOD W. WILMOTH, individually,             )
                                                     )
                            Petitioners,             )
                                                     )
       PRIORI CULTIVATION, INC., a                   )
       Washington corporation,                       )
                                                     )
                            Defendant.               )

               PENNELL, J. — Electronically stored information is ubiquitous in contemporary

       law practice. When an attorney responds to a discovery request by sending electronically

       stored information to opposing counsel, care must be taken to avoid inadvertent

       disclosure of embedded information that might be subject to a claim of privilege.

       Nevertheless, if an inadvertent disclosure happens, the receiving attorney must take

       corrective action, including notifying the sender. Sanctions must be imposed if an

       attorney fails to take corrective action, with the most severe sanction being

       disqualification.
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       No. 38363-6-III
       Hur v. Lloyd & Williams, LLC

              Counsel for Lloyd & Williams, LLC, and its members, Dewight Hall Jr. and Tod

       W. Wilmoth (collectively L&W), inadvertently disclosed information subject to a claim

       of privilege when it sent electronic discovery responses to opposing counsel that had been

       partially redacted but not scrubbed of embedded text. Instead of notifying counsel for

       L&W and sequestering the documents, opposing counsel cited portions of the embedded

       text in support of a summary judgment motion. This prompted L&W to move for

       opposing counsel’s disqualification.

              The failure of opposing counsel to take corrective action violated rules of civil

       procedure and professional conduct. Nevertheless, the trial court ruled disqualification

       was not an appropriate sanction because counsel’s rule violations were not intentional.

       Having accepted discretionary review of this matter, we find no abuse of discretion in the

       trial court’s choice of sanction. Accordingly, we affirm.

                                                 FACTS

              Patty Hur is embroiled in a contract dispute with L&W. Responding to a discovery

       request, L&W’s lawyer, George Ahrend, sent more than 1,000 pages of e-mails to Ms.

       Hur’s lawyer, Heidi Urness. The discovery was sent electronically and was accompanied

       by a notice stating privileged information had been redacted. Mr. Ahrend later explained

       he redacted the purportedly privileged e-mails by blacking out the substantive content,

                                                    2
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       No. 38363-6-III
       Hur v. Lloyd & Williams, LLC

       leaving the header information (i.e., date, sender, recipient, and subject) visible in lieu of

       a privilege log. 1

              More than one year after receipt of the discovery responses, Ms. Hur moved for

       partial summary judgment. Attached to Ms. Hur’s declaration in support of the motion

       were two exhibits taken from Mr. Ahrend’s discovery materials. The exhibits are

       screenshots, and each image has a left-hand column and a right-hand column. The left-

       hand columns display the results of keyword searches. The search results are sentence

       fragments containing the search terms “Maggie” and “rent,” 2 accompanied by a

       denotation of how many “matches” had been found in the searched documents. Clerk’s

       Papers (CP) at 71-74. Alongside each set of search results, in the images’ right-hand

       columns, appears a visual of e-mail headers followed by completely blacked out text.

              Mr. Ahrend reviewed Ms. Hur’s summary judgment submissions and recognized

       the e-mail fragments as content he had intended to redact. Upon further investigation,

       Mr. Ahrend discovered his attempt at redaction had been only partially successful.

              1
                Mr. Ahrend used a software program called “DocReviewPad” to redact the
       e-mails. He believed this program would remove metadata. Pet’rs’ Opening Br. at 3.
              2
                According to Ms. Urness, she used these terms because she was searching
       for evidence supporting Ms. Hur’s claim that her former attorney, Maggie Widlund,
       had discussed the issue of rent payments with L&W’s representatives. Clerk’s Papers
       at 170-71, 179.

                                                      3
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       No. 38363-6-III
       Hur v. Lloyd & Williams, LLC

       Although portions of the discovery had been blacked out, the metadata 3 associated with

       the redacted portions had not been removed from the documents produced. As a result,

       the content of the blacked-out text was discoverable upon performing a word search of

       the document.

              L&W moved to disqualify Ms. Urness from the case, alleging her receipt and

       retention of privileged materials violated ethical and discovery court rules. Ms. Urness

       denied any wrongdoing. She provided various explanations for her conduct, including

       assertions that she did not understand metadata and that she had received at least some of

       the information from a third party. Ms. Urness also argued the e-mails were not privileged

       and that they revealed L&W had engaged in its own ethical violations by withholding

       information and making misstatements to the court. 4 Ms. Urness was adamant she had not

       tried to uncover privileged information, but had simply performed a word search of the

       discovery materials.

              3
               “Metadata is the ‘data about data’ that is commonly embedded in electronic
       documents.” Wash. State Bar Ass’n Rules of Prof’l Conduct Comm., Advisory Op. 2216
       (2012), available at https://ao.wsba.org/searchresult.aspx?year=&num=2216&arch=
       False&rpc=&keywords=.
             4
               The e-mail excerpts appeared to show L&W was aware Ms. Hur had made rent
       payments on L&W’s leased premises, a factual issue that had been the subject of dispute.

                                                    4
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       No. 38363-6-III
       Hur v. Lloyd & Williams, LLC

              The superior court denied L&W’s motion to disqualify Ms. Urness. The court

       opined that some of Ms. Urness’s explanations were suspicious but credited Ms. Urness’s

       assertion that she did not knowingly search through privileged material. Furthermore, the

       superior court acknowledged that disqualification is an extraordinary remedy, imposed

       only in extremely rare circumstances. The court fashioned alternate remedies: it ordered

       Ms. Urness to destroy the files, promised to banish the e-mail excerpts from the court’s

       decision-making, and instructed the parties to not mention the excerpts again.

              L&W sought discretionary review of the superior court’s order denying its motion

       for disqualification. We accepted review.

                                                ANALYSIS

              Our review of the trial court’s order denying disqualification involves two

       steps. First, we assess the nature and extent of the rule violations giving rise to the

       disqualification motion. This is a legal matter, reviewed de novo. In re Firestorm 1991,

       129 Wn.2d 130, 135, 916 P.2d 411 (1996). Second, if a violation is found, we assess

       whether disqualification is an appropriate remedy. We review the trial court’s choice of

       remedy for abuse of discretion, keeping in mind that disqualification is a drastic sanction

       that should be limited to egregious violations. Id. at 140; Wash. State Physicians Ins.

       Exch. & Ass’n v. Fisons Corp., 122 Wn.2d 299, 338, 355-56, 858 P.2d 1054 (1993).

                                                      5
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       No. 38363-6-III
       Hur v. Lloyd & Williams, LLC

       1. The nature and extent of the rule violation

              L&W alleges Ms. Urness’s conduct violated two court rules governing the

       handling of discovery that is subject to a claim of privilege. The rules are as follows:

              A lawyer who receives a document or electronically stored information
              relating to the representation of the lawyer’s client and knows or reasonably
              should know that the document or electronically stored information was
              inadvertently sent shall promptly notify the sender.

       RPC 4.4(b).

              If information produced in discovery is subject to a claim of privilege or of
              protection as trial-preparation material, the party making the claim may notify any
              party that received the information of the claim and the basis for it. After being
              notified, a party must promptly return, sequester, or destroy the specified
              information and any copies it has; must not use or disclose the information until
              the claim is resolved; and must take reasonable steps to retrieve the information if
              the party disclosed it before being notified. Either party may promptly present the
              information in camera to the court for a determination of the claim. The producing
              party must preserve the information until the claim is resolved.

       CR 26(b)(6).

              Taken together, these rules require a recipient of inadvertently disclosed

       information subject to a claim of privilege to notify the sender and either return,

       sequester, or destroy the materials. Under CR 26(b)(6), the attorney can share the

       materials with the court in camera if privilege is disputed. But until the issue of privilege

       is resolved, the attorney should not disclose the materials to others, including the public

       by way of a nonconfidential court filing.

                                                     6
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       No. 38363-6-III
       Hur v. Lloyd & Williams, LLC

              L&W contends Ms. Urness violated the foregoing rules by reading its privileged

       e-mails. This is incorrect. The rules do not prohibit a lawyer from reading inadvertently

       disclosed information that is subject to a claim of privilege. The only proscription is of

       the failure to take corrective action.

              L&W also claims Ms. Urness somehow purposefully “looked behind the

       redactions” to view privileged materials. Pet’rs’ Opening Br. at 20. Had this occurred, it

       would have been a significant ethical breach. See Wash. State Bar Ass’n (WSBA) Rules

       of Prof’l Conduct Comm., Advisory Op. 2216 (2012). But the record does not support

       L&W’s claim. When Mr. Ahrend’s office produced the discovery responses, his staff

       advised Ms. Urness that information subject to a claim of privilege had been redacted.

       Proper redaction means taking reasonable steps to prevent disclosure of confidential

       metadata. See id.; RPC 1.6(c). There is nothing improper or unreasonable in conducting a

       word search on materials containing redactions. Nor is it unethical to simply read the

       results of that word search. See WSBA Advisory Op. 2216 (noting that “[u]nder the

       ethical rules,” a recipient of inadvertently sent metadata is “not required to refrain from

       reading the document, nor [are they] required to return the document” to the sender).

       Indeed, it is only by reading the materials, at least cursorily, that a recipient can be

       expected to discover in the first place that they were inadvertently sent privileged

                                                      7
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       No. 38363-6-III
       Hur v. Lloyd & Williams, LLC

       information.

               While the rules did not forbid Ms. Urness from reading the e-mail excerpts, the

       record nevertheless indicates she violated RPC 4.4(b) and CR 26(b)(6). Upon reviewing

       L&W’s discovery materials, Ms. Urness should have understood she was able to discover

       portions of e-mails that were supposed to have been redacted due to a claim of privilege.

       Ms. Urness may have disagreed with the claim of privilege, but this did not excuse her

       from taking corrective action. Upon discovering electronically stored information subject

       to a claim of privilege, Ms. Urness was required to notify Mr. Ahrend and either return,

       sequester, or destroy the materials in question. She should not have used the materials in

       support of Ms. Hur’s motion for summary judgment without first obtaining a court order

       designating the materials as not privileged. Ms. Urness’s failure to take corrective action

       upon discovery of the privileged information and her use of the materials in support of

       summary judgment are violations that required some sort of sanction. Fisons, 122 Wn.2d

       at 355. 5

               On discretionary review to this court, Ms. Urness has continued to dispute
               5

       whether the e-mails were privileged. The trial court has apparently issued an order finding
       the e-mails privileged. That order is not before this court and the trial court’s privilege
       determination is not material to our disposition. Nothing in our decision should be read as
       opining on L&W’s claim of privilege or whether the claim of privilege should be subject
       to reconsideration or a later direct review.

                                                    8
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       No. 38363-6-III
       Hur v. Lloyd & Williams, LLC

       2. Whether disqualification is an appropriate remedy

              Trial courts have a variety of options when issuing sanctions for discovery

       violations involving a claim of privilege. Attorney disqualification is the most severe

       sanction and should not be imposed unless “absolutely necessary.” Firestorm, 129 Wn.2d

       at 140. Our court has identified four factors trial courts must consider in determining

       whether disqualification is an appropriate remedy for an attorney’s access to privileged

       information: (1) prejudice, (2) counsel’s fault, (3) counsel’s knowledge of the claim of

       privilege, and (4) the possibility of lesser sanctions. Foss Mar. Co. v. Brandewiede, 190

       Wn. App. 186, 195, 359 P.3d 905 (2015). “No one factor predominates or has greater

       importance than others.” Id. at 197. Though it may be “best practice” for the superior

       court to enter written findings on each of the factors, the superior court need not do so as

       long as the record permits the appellate court “to evaluate the trial court’s consideration”

       of the factors. Id.

              We assess each of the four factors in turn.

              a. Prejudice

              With respect to the first factor, L&W has not suffered significant prejudice as a

       result of Ms. Urness’s rule violations. Ms. Urness would have learned of the information

       in the e-mails even if she had taken the corrective action required by RPC 4.4(b) and

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       No. 38363-6-III
       Hur v. Lloyd & Williams, LLC

       CR 26(b)(6). Furthermore, because Ms. Urness disputed L&W’s claim of privilege

       and because she believed the materials at issue revealed ethical violations by L&W

       and Mr. Ahrend, she almost certainly would have disclosed the e-mails in question to the

       trial judge, in camera, had she followed the applicable rules. Thus, the trial judge, like

       Ms. Urness, was not exposed to any information that would have gone unknown had

       Ms. Urness not violated the applicable rules.

              The only material change caused by Ms. Urness’s rule violations is that L&W’s

       redacted materials have been made public. However, L&W has not articulated any reason

       why this revelation is prejudicial. During oral argument, Mr. Ahrend represented that the

       two e-mail fragments were of minor significance because they are consistent with his

       clients’ version of the facts. Wash. Court of Appeals oral argument, Hur v. Lloyd &

       Williams, LLC, No. 38363-6-III (Nov. 8, 2022), at 10 min., 30 sec. to 10 min., 38 sec.

       (“There’s nothing incompatible with those e-mails and [L&W’s] testimony as to what

       happened in this business transaction that went sour.”), video recording by TVW,

       Washington State’s Public Affairs Network, https://tvw.org/video/division-3-court-of-

       appeals-2022111202/?eventID=2022111202. Prejudice has not been shown and therefore

       does not weigh in favor of disqualification.

                                                      10
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       No. 38363-6-III
       Hur v. Lloyd & Williams, LLC

              b. Fault

              While Ms. Urness was at fault for failing to take corrective action once she

       discovered she had been inadvertently provided materials subject to a claim of privilege,

       her culpability is not as severe as claimed by L&W. Consideration of fault weighs against

       disqualification where an attorney gained access to purportedly privileged information

       through an “inadvertent disclosure by the opposing party.” Foss, 190 Wn. App. at 196.

       There is no evidence suggesting Ms. Urness purposefully sought to uncover privileged

       information or unredacted metadata. L&W points to Ms. Urness’s choice of search terms

       and posits Ms. Urness would not have known to use the search terms unless she was

       engaged in sophisticated wrongdoing. We disagree. The record reflects Ms. Urness knew

       what search terms to use because she had conferred with her client and her client’s former

       attorney and was looking for documents that corresponded to their version of events.

       This is not suspicious conduct. It is the type of behavior one would expect of a competent

       attorney.

              c. Knowledge

              With respect to the third factor, the question is whether Ms. Urness reviewed

       materials “clearly designated as privileged” or “continue[d] review” after becoming

       aware she had inadvertently accessed privileged information. Id. Here, Ms. Urness

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       No. 38363-6-III
       Hur v. Lloyd & Williams, LLC

       violated the discovery rules by failing to take corrective action once a reasonable person

       would have realized the e-mail excerpts contained information subject to a claim of

       privilege. But the trial court found this violation was not intentional. We defer to this

       finding as it was not clearly erroneous.

              According to L&W, the facts before the court compel the conclusion that Ms.

       Urness had lied to the court and engaged in intentional misconduct. We are unpersuaded.

       Unlike Mr. Ahrend, Ms. Urness was not able to compare the results of her word search

       with the unredacted discovery responses in order to verify she had accessed information

       that was subject to a claim of privilege. Even a sophisticated computer user would likely

       have been confused upon initially encountering results of a word search that did not

       match up with the contents of the visible text. Someone familiar with metadata would

       likely come to realize that the mismatched content was attributable to embedded text that

       had been insufficiently redacted. But an individual such as Ms. Urness, who claims an

       unfamiliarity with metadata, might have a hard time overcoming the initial confusion. 6

              6
               We do not mean to excuse counsel’s lack of familiarity with metadata. The
       Rules of Professional Conduct require competent representation, including “the legal
       knowledge, skill, thoroughness and preparation reasonably necessary for the
       representation.” RPC 1.1. To the extent a lawyer uses computer technology in
       communications, document management, or the exchange of electronic discovery,
       competent representation requires an understanding of metadata. See WSBA Advisory
       Op. 2216.

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       No. 38363-6-III
       Hur v. Lloyd & Williams, LLC

              L&W claims the trial court’s credibility determination was tainted by legal error

       because Ms. Urness’s statements to the court were unsworn and because the court

       improperly utilized a heightened standard of proof. Neither concern is valid. Ms. Urness

       is a licensed attorney. Her professional oath prohibits knowingly making a false statement

       of fact or law to the court. RPC 3.3(a)(1). The trial court was entitled to rely on Ms.

       Urness’s explanations of her conduct, made in open court, without the necessity of

       administering an oath. See id. cmt. 3. And while the trial court did comment that it wanted

       to be “very clear” that Ms. Urness “absolutely knew” she was doing something wrong

       before disqualifying her, this was in the context of selecting an appropriate penalty, not

       part of the court’s credibility assessment. CP at 204-05. We interpret this comment as

       simply reflecting the trial court’s accurate legal assessment that it should not impose

       disqualification unless it was convinced doing so was “absolutely necessary.” Firestorm,

       129 Wn.2d at 140.

              d. Possibility of lesser sanctions

              Disqualification will not always—or even often—be an appropriate sanction when

       a lawyer has behaved in a troubling or unethical way. Id. (noting disqualification’s

       “limited applicability”). Because disqualification is a drastic remedy that severely

       penalizes parties for their counsel’s misconduct, it is warranted only if less severe

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       No. 38363-6-III
       Hur v. Lloyd & Williams, LLC

       sanctions are inadequate to address counsel’s rule violations. Id. at 142-45; see also

       Fisons, 122 Wn.2d at 355-56 (directing trial courts to impose the “least severe” sanction

       adequate to address counsel’s misconduct). Here, the standard for disqualification has not

       been met. Given Ms. Urness would have learned of the information L&W claimed was

       privileged even if she had abided by the rules, disqualification was not necessary to deter

       misconduct or preserve public confidence in the judicial system. The trial court did issue

       a lesser remedy designed to ensure Ms. Hur would not profit from her lawyer’s rule

       violation. Specifically, the trial court ruled that not only must Ms. Urness destroy the

       files, the court also stated it would not consider the e-mail excerpts going forward.

       This measured sanction was appropriate under the circumstances.

              L&W cites Firestorm for the proposition that disqualification is required when

       counsel has accessed an opposing party’s privileged materials. But “Firestorm did not

       establish a per se rule that mere access to privileged information taints the judicial process

       and requires disqualification, regardless of the circumstances.” Foss, 190 Wn. App. at

       197. Rather, Firestorm made disqualification mandatory only in the context of a conflict

       of interest, which is not at issue here. Id. (citing Firestorm, 129 Wn.2d at 140). An

       attorney’s “mere access to an opposing party’s privileged information” does not

       “compel[ ] disqualification.” Id. at 198.

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       No. 38363-6-III
       Hur v. Lloyd & Williams, LLC

              None of the four applicable factors mandate disqualification as an appropriate

       remedy for Ms. Urness’s rule violations. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in

       denying L&W’s disqualification motion and imposing a lesser sanction.

                                            CONCLUSION

              We affirm the trial court’s order denying L&W’s motion for disqualification.

       This disposition is without prejudice to any future case developments. For example,

       Ms. Urness represented to this court during oral argument that the only redacted materials

       she accessed were the two e-mail excerpts referenced in Ms. Hur’s motion for summary

       judgment. Wash. Court of Appeals oral argument, supra, at 24 min., 45 sec. to 25 min.,

       10 sec. We expect that, as a licensed attorney, Ms. Urness’s representation to this court

       was truthful. In the unlikely event this was not the case, a new motion for sanctions may

       be appropriate.

                                                 _________________________________
                                                 Pennell, J.

       WE CONCUR:

       ______________________________
       Lawrence-Berrey, A.C.J.

       ______________________________
       Fearing, J.

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