Kadrey v. Meta Platforms, Inc.
- Vince Chhabria
- 3:23-cv-03417
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 4
In Kadrey v. Meta, Magistrate Judge Hixson granted Meta’s protective-order motion and denied plaintiffs’ motion to compel, finding the communications privileged.
The ruling affected the plaintiffs and Meta Platforms, Inc. in the discovery dispute. Plaintiffs could not use the communications and had to return or destroy them; Meta obtained the protective order.
What happened
Kadrey v. Meta Platforms, Inc. concerned communications by former part-time Meta employee Tim Dettmers on two Discord channels. Plaintiffs sought to use the communications in discovery, while Meta argued they were protected by attorney-client privilege.
The court found that the communications contained or revealed legal advice from Meta’s attorneys and requests for that advice. It also found that Dettmers lacked authority to waive Meta’s privilege and that Meta had taken reasonable steps to protect the communications.
Magistrate Judge Thomas S. Hixson granted Meta’s motion for a protective order and denied plaintiffs’ motion to compel. The court ruled that the communications were privileged, had not been disclosed in a way that waived the privilege, and could not be used by plaintiffs; plaintiffs had to return or destroy them.
The detailed version
- Kadrey v. Meta Platforms, Inc. · No. 3:23-cv-03417
- Vince Chhabria
- Aug. 22, 2024
Background
The discovery dispute involved communications made by Tim Dettmers, a former part-time Meta employee, on two Discord channels. The court reviewed the communications privately and held a hearing on August 22, 2024.
Plaintiffs argued that the communications were not attorney-client privileged because they were not requests for legal advice or responses to such requests, and because they disclosed facts. Meta argued that the communications were privileged and that Dettmers’s disclosures did not waive Meta’s privilege.
Attorney-Client Privilege
The court found that the communications contained or revealed legal advice from Meta’s attorneys and requests for legal advice by Meta employees. The fact that Dettmers was communicating with EleutherAI did not change the court’s conclusion because the communications plainly revealed legal advice given by Meta’s attorneys. The court therefore found that the communications were privileged from the outset.
Waiver
The court explained that a corporation’s officers and directors normally control its attorney-client privilege, but recognized that a lower-level employee may sometimes waive the privilege by voluntarily disclosing privileged material while acting within the scope of the authority given by the corporation.
The court found that Meta established that Dettmers did not have authority to waive the privilege. There was no indication that Meta expressly or implicitly authorized him to conduct external communications, designated him to communicate or collaborate with EleutherAI, or knew about those communications before they appeared in plaintiffs’ amended complaint. The court rejected plaintiffs’ request to infer such authority from the communications themselves.
The court also found that Meta had taken all reasonable steps to protect the privilege, including steps after discovering the disclosure. It therefore rejected plaintiffs’ arguments that Meta had not acted diligently enough.
Ruling
The court granted Meta’s motion for a protective order and denied plaintiffs’ motion to compel. It found that the communications were privileged and that Meta had not waived the privilege. Plaintiffs could not use the communications and were required to return them to Meta or destroy them.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.