JGX, Inc. v. Handlery
- Beth Freeman
- 5:17-cv-00287
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
In JGX v. Handlery, Judge Van Keulen resolved a discovery dispute by requiring a privilege response for documents preliminarily found unprotected.
The order affected JGX, Inc., the Handlery defendants, and former defendant Singer in connection with privilege-log challenges and production of specified documents.
What happened
JGX, Inc. v. Handlery involved the parties’ dispute over attorney-client privilege and work-product protection for documents listed on privilege logs. The court considered whether former defendant Singer’s participation in communications affected those protections.
The court ruled that Singer’s participation did not, by itself, defeat either protection because the complaint alleged Singer acted as the defendants’ agent. It also ruled that JGX’s challenge to the Handlery defendants’ privilege log was too late, but that JGX’s challenge to Singer’s log was not automatically too late.
The court preliminarily found that specified documents unique to Singer’s privilege log were not protected by either privilege. Judge Van Keulen gave the defendants until November 7, 2019, to produce those documents or submit a confidential brief explaining the factual basis for withholding any of them.
The detailed version
- JGX, Inc. v. Handlery · No. 5:17-cv-00287
- Beth Freeman
- Oct. 31, 2019
Background
The court held a hearing on October 22, 2019, concerning the parties’ discovery dispute. The dispute concerned attorney-client privilege and the work-product doctrine, which can protect certain confidential attorney communications and materials prepared for litigation.
Rulings
The court ruled that former defendant Singer’s participation in communications between the Handlery defendants and their counsel did not, by itself, eliminate attorney-client privilege or work-product protection. The court relied on the complaint’s allegations that Singer acted as the defendants’ agent during the relevant period before the lawsuit was filed.
The court further ruled that JGX’s challenge to the Handlery defendants’ privilege log was untimely. The log had been served in December 2018, but JGX did not raise its challenge until after discovery closed in October 2019. In contrast, the court ruled that JGX’s challenge to Singer’s privilege log was not automatically untimely.
After conducting a private review of documents unique to Singer’s privilege log, the court preliminarily found that the listed documents were not protected by either privilege. The listed documents were SINGERPRIVO0000001-2; SINGERPRIV0000003; SINGERPRIV0000020-23; SINGERPRIV0000024; SINGERPRIV0000025; SINGERPRIV0000026-28; SINGERPRIV0000081-93; SINGERPRIV0000123-37; SINGERPRIV0000177-80; SINGERPRIV0000185-89; SINGERPRIV0000190-95; and SINGERPRIV0000254-59.
Disposition
The court ordered the defendants, by November 7, 2019, either to produce those documents to JGX or to submit a confidential brief to the court, without serving it on JGX, stating the factual basis for claiming privilege for any listed document. The order was signed by Susan Van Keulen, United States Magistrate Judge.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.