RJ v. Cigna Behavioral Health, Inc.
- Edward Davila
- 5:20-cv-02255
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 5
In RJ v. Cigna Health and Life Insurance Co., Judge Demarchi ordered limited production and further proceedings over discovery concerning consultant Thomas Ralston.
The order affected RJ and the other plaintiffs, their counsel, defendants including Cigna Health and Life Insurance Company and MultiPlan, Inc., and the discovery concerning Thomas Ralston.
What happened
In RJ et al. v. Cigna Health and Life Insurance Company et al., defendants sought documents about former MultiPlan employee Thomas Ralston’s consulting work for plaintiffs’ lawyers, payments, and communications about his declaration and certain billing codes. Plaintiffs objected that some requests were outside the existing discovery requests, irrelevant, or protected by the attorney work product doctrine.
The court ordered plaintiffs to produce non-protected documents showing the nature of Ralston’s consulting work and the amounts paid or owed. But the court could not resolve the dispute over communications concerning Ralston’s testimony because plaintiffs had not provided enough reliable information or a privilege log.
Judge Virginia K. Demarchi ordered defendants to identify the discovery requests at issue, required plaintiffs to provide a work-product log, and directed the parties to confer. If the dispute remained, defendants could file a motion to compel or the parties could request expedited resolution.
The detailed version
- RJ v. Cigna Behavioral Health, Inc. · No. 5:20-cv-02255
- Edward Davila
- Jan. 11, 2023
Background
The parties asked the court to resolve plaintiffs’ objections to producing documents concerning Thomas Ralston, a former employee of defendant MultiPlan, Inc. Defendants said the documents were within the scope of their discovery requests and were relevant and proportional because plaintiffs had recently disclosed that they might rely on Ralston’s testimony. Plaintiffs disagreed that all requested documents were covered by the existing requests and objected that the documents were irrelevant and that many were protected by the attorney work product doctrine.
Defendants identified four categories of requested materials: documents showing the nature of Ralston’s consulting work for plaintiffs’ counsel or their law firms; documents showing amounts paid or owed for that work; communications about Ralston’s declaration in a prior related proceeding; and communications about Viant OPR, HCPCS code H0015, or revenue code 0906.
Work Product and Discovery Dispute
The attorney work product doctrine generally protects documents and tangible things prepared in anticipation of litigation or for trial. Protection may be waived, including when protected material is voluntarily disclosed to an adversary or placed at issue. Even when protection has not been waived, discovery may be ordered if the requesting party shows substantial need and cannot obtain the substantial equivalent without undue hardship. The court must still protect an attorney’s mental impressions, conclusions, opinions, and legal theories.
The court understood that plaintiffs did not object to producing documents sufficient to show the nature of Ralston’s consulting work and the amounts paid or owed, subject to possible work-product objections to some portions. The court also understood that defendants were not seeking counsel’s files or internal communications among plaintiffs’ counsel and their employees, but instead sought writings exchanged between Ralston or his counsel and plaintiffs’ counsel or their employees.
The court could not resolve the dispute over categories 3 and 4. That dispute appeared to concern whether communications between plaintiffs’ counsel and a nonparty witness about the substance of the witness’s testimony were protected work product. Plaintiffs had not provided a privilege log identifying the documents they claimed were protected and suggested that few, if any, such documents existed. The court stated that the answer could depend on the nature and purpose of the communications.
Order
For categories 1 and 2, the court ordered plaintiffs to produce by January 18, 2023, all documents or portions of documents concerning the nature and payment of Ralston’s consulting work for which plaintiffs had no work-product objection.
The court also ordered that:
- By January 13, 2023, defendants had to file the discovery requests and corresponding responses they believed covered the four categories.
- By January 20, 2023, plaintiffs had to provide defendants with a log of documents within those categories that plaintiffs claimed were protected by work product. The descriptions had to comply with Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b)(5)(A)(ii).
- The parties had to promptly confer about relevance, proportionality, and protection from disclosure. If a dispute remained, defendants could file a regularly noticed motion to compel, or the parties could ask the court to resolve the dispute through expedited procedures under Judge DeMarchi’s standing order.
The court therefore issued a discovery order and required further proceedings; it did not finally resolve all of plaintiffs’ work-product objections.
Read the full 5-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.