Piccolo v. Equinox Holdings, Inc.
- Laura Swain
- 1:22-cv-09085
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 5
In Piccolo v. Equinox Holdings, Judge Figueredo ordered production of communications after finding the common-interest doctrine did not protect them.
Jaime Piccolo must produce the identified communications to Equinox Holdings, Inc. and Gary Browne. The ruling also concerns communications exchanged with Brieanna Skarbo, who was not a party to the case.
What happened
In Piccolo v. Equinox Holdings, Inc., the parties disputed whether Jaime Piccolo could withhold messages and emails exchanged with Brieanna Skarbo, an Equinox employee who was not a party. Piccolo claimed the common-interest doctrine protected the communications from disclosure.
The court reviewed the communications privately. It found that some messages did not involve an attorney or legal advice and therefore were not privileged. Other messages involved legal advice or attorney work product, but the court found that Piccolo and Skarbo were only updating each other about their separate potential claims against Equinox, not developing a shared legal strategy. Sharing those messages therefore waived any attorney-client protection.
Judge Valerie Figueredo ordered production to the defendants of the listed nonprivileged messages without redactions, as well as the listed communications whose attorney-client protection was waived. The court also directed production of Entry 11 if it contained no privilege redactions and terminated the letter motion.
The detailed version
- Piccolo v. Equinox Holdings, Inc. · No. 1:22-cv-09085
- Laura Swain
- Aug. 22, 2024
Background
The parties submitted a joint letter concerning Jaime Piccolo's withholding of text messages and emails exchanged with Brieanna Skarbo. Skarbo was an Equinox employee and was not a party to the case. Piccolo relied on the common-interest doctrine, which can preserve attorney-client or work-product protection when parties with a shared legal interest exchange protected information while developing a common legal strategy.
After a conference, Piccolo submitted the communications for the court's private review. The opinion states that Piccolo and Skarbo were represented by the same attorneys at Wigdor LLP and were pursuing or considering claims against Equinox. Skarbo ultimately did not file a suit against Equinox.
Analysis
The court explained that the common-interest doctrine is not a separate privilege. It extends attorney-client privilege or work-product protection only when the underlying communication was itself protected and the parties shared a common legal interest. The party claiming protection bears the burden of establishing the facts supporting the privilege.
The court found Entries 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, and 27 nonprivileged. These communications did not include an attorney and, to the extent they might have included one, did not seek or reflect legal advice. The court directed that these entries be produced to the defendants without redactions.
The court found that other communications did contain attorney communications seeking legal advice, and that some included draft attorney work product. Nevertheless, it held that the common-interest doctrine did not apply. The communications showed that Piccolo and Skarbo were updating each other about their separate cases, including Skarbo's forwarding of documents prepared by her attorney and Piccolo's sharing of communications with her own attorney. The court found no indication that they were formulating or advancing a common legal strategy for their respective matters.
Because the common-interest doctrine did not protect the communications, the court held that any attorney-client protection that otherwise applied to Entries 5, 6, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 24, 25, and 26 was waived when Piccolo shared them with Skarbo. The court also stated that Entry 11 should be produced if the copy submitted for review contained no privilege redactions.
Ruling
Judge Valerie Figueredo ordered production of the identified communications as described above and directed the Clerk of Court to terminate the letter motion at ECF No. 34. The order addressed the discovery and privilege dispute; it did not decide the underlying claims against the defendants.
Read the full 5-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.