Roblox Corporation v. WowWee Group Limited
- Susan Illston
- 3:22-cv-04476
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 7
In Roblox Corporation v. WowWee Group Limited, Judge Illston protected two documents but ordered two others produced without redactions in a discovery-privilege dispute.
Roblox and WowWee were directly affected; the order also concerned communications involving Jazwares.
What happened
In Roblox Corporation v. WowWee Group Limited, the court reviewed four documents that Roblox had withheld or redacted during discovery. Two documents concerned a meeting between Roblox and Gamefam; two others concerned communications between Roblox and Jazwares about a toy-related dispute.
The court found that the two documents about the Gamefam meeting were protected attorney-client communications and that Roblox had not waived that protection by relying on related facts in a verified discovery response. For the two Roblox-Jazwares documents, however, the court rejected Roblox’s privilege position because the communications were between non-lawyer employees of different companies and ordered Roblox to produce them without redactions.
Judge Illston entered the discovery order on January 16, 2024. The ruling resolved the privilege treatment of the four documents but did not decide the underlying claims or defenses in the lawsuit.
The detailed version
- Roblox Corporation v. WowWee Group Limited · No. 3:22-cv-04476
- Susan Illston
- Jan. 16, 2024
Background
The court reviewed four discovery documents submitted by Roblox. The first two, identified as ROBLOX-PLOG-0001 and ROBLOX-PLOG-0002, concerned a July 11, 2022 meeting between Roblox and Gamefam. WowWee alleged that Roblox improperly pressured Gamefam to end its collaboration with WowWee and argued that the meeting was relevant to its counterclaims and affirmative defenses. Roblox described the documents as an internal email thread and an attached shared document prepared to obtain and communicate legal advice about talking points for the meeting.
The other two documents, ROBLOX-PLOG-0038 and ROBLOX-PLOG-0402, concerned a dispute involving Roblox and Jazwares about partnering to make specific toys. Roblox had re-reviewed four challenged privilege-log entries and produced two documents in full, but submitted these two documents for review with redactions. Roblox said the redacted portions referred to seeking legal advice, legal advice itself, and related instructions.
The Gamefam documents
The court held that ROBLOX-PLOG-0001 and ROBLOX-PLOG-0002 were protected by the attorney-client privilege, which generally protects confidential communications made to obtain or provide legal advice. The court also rejected WowWee’s argument that Roblox had implicitly waived the privilege by using information from the documents in a verified interrogatory response.
The court explained that privilege is not waived merely because protected communications relate to issues in the lawsuit. It found that the meeting facts were available from other sources, including testimony from one Gamefam attendee, and that the withheld documents were not the only source of indirect evidence about the meeting. The court therefore concluded that no implied waiver had occurred for these two documents.
The Roblox-Jazwares documents
The court rejected Roblox’s reliance on the common-interest doctrine. That doctrine can preserve confidentiality when parties and their lawyers communicate as part of an agreed joint legal strategy. The court found no indication that attorneys for Roblox or Jazwares participated in the communications and no cited authority applying the doctrine to communications solely between non-attorney employees of different parties.
The court also declined to extend attorney-client protection to these communications under the cited case law. Although attorney-client privilege can apply to communications between non-lawyer employees of the same company when they transmit legal advice or discuss an intent to seek legal advice, the court stated that the cited authority did not extend that rule to communications between non-lawyer employees of different companies. Because the privilege is strictly construed, the court ordered Roblox to produce ROBLOX-PLOG-0038 and ROBLOX-PLOG-0402 without redactions.
Disposition
The court determined that ROBLOX-PLOG-0001 and ROBLOX-PLOG-0002 were protected attorney-client communications and that Roblox had not implicitly waived the privilege over them. It ordered Roblox to produce ROBLOX-PLOG-0038 and ROBLOX-PLOG-0402 without redactions. The order addressed discovery issues and did not resolve the underlying claims or defenses.
Read the full 7-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.