Eventbrite, Inc. v. M.R.G. Concerts Ltd.
- Susan Illston
- 3:20-cv-04040
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 4
In Eventbrite v. M.R.G. Concerts, Judge Illston partly granted and partly denied a privilege challenge, requiring some documents produced while protecting others.
Eventbrite must produce two messages from EB003979 without redactions and may keep one specified line redacted; M.R.G. receives the material ordered disclosed.
What happened
In Eventbrite, Inc. v. M.R.G. Concerts Ltd., M.R.G. challenged Eventbrite’s redactions on seven documents and its decision to take back an email that had been produced without redactions.
Eventbrite said the redacted material contained confidential legal advice or information needed to obtain legal advice. M.R.G. argued that the material was not protected and that Eventbrite had given up any protection by producing and discussing the email.
Judge Susan Illston denied M.R.G.’s challenge for six documents, granted its challenge to the taken-back email, and granted in part and denied in part its challenge to another document. Eventbrite had to produce two messages without redactions but could keep one specified line redacted.
The detailed version
- Eventbrite, Inc. v. M.R.G. Concerts Ltd. · No. 3:20-cv-04040
- Susan Illston
- Aug. 2, 2021
Background
This order resolves a discovery dispute about attorney-client privilege. M.R.G. challenged Eventbrite’s privilege redactions on seven documents and Eventbrite’s clawback of an email that had been produced in unredacted form. Eventbrite had also provided a redacted version of that email.
Legal standard
The court explained that discovery generally covers information relevant to a party’s claim or defense and proportional to the needs of the case, unless the information is privileged. Attorney-client privilege protects confidential communications between appropriate persons made to obtain or provide legal advice or legal assistance. The court reviewed the disputed documents privately before ruling.
Rulings on the redacted documents
The court denied M.R.G.’s challenge to the privilege assertions for six documents: EB003983, EB004002, EB004011, EB029299, EB029330, and the Andy Donner document. The court found that the redacted portions contained protected legal advice or legal assistance. It also found that the Andy Donner document contained information that allowed Eventbrite’s attorneys to provide legal advice.
For EB003979, the court granted in part and denied in part M.R.G.’s challenge. Only the redacted line in Ali McCloud’s March 19, 2020 email sent at 9:31 a.m. was privileged. The court found that the two other redactions—one in Julia Hartz’s 12:40 p.m. email and one in Andy Donner’s 12:55 p.m. email, both on March 19, 2020—were not privileged. Eventbrite had to reproduce EB003979 without those two redactions but could keep McCloud’s specified line redacted.
Ruling on the clawed-back email
The court granted M.R.G.’s challenge to Eventbrite’s privilege assertion for the clawed-back email, identified as EB024669. Although attorneys were copied on the email, the court found that its contents did not involve protected legal advice, legal assistance, or a communication that was objectively reasonable to treat as confidential. The court therefore rejected the proposed redactions. Because the court found the email unprivileged, it did not need to rely on M.R.G.’s separate argument that Eventbrite waived privilege by failing to object when the email was used at an earlier deposition.
Disposition
The court denied M.R.G.’s challenge for the six identified documents, granted M.R.G.’s challenge to EB024669, and granted in part and denied in part M.R.G.’s challenge to EB003979. Eventbrite was ordered to reproduce the documents as directed by August 16, 2021.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.