Feinwachs v. HealthPartners, Inc.

Background

David Feinwachs sued the Minnesota Hospital Association and MCCA under the federal False Claims Act and the Minnesota False Claims Act. This order concerns Feinwachs’s motion for further consideration of sealing certain emails between him and his attorneys, as well as filings discussing those emails.

The emails were sent to personal Comcast email accounts and were later found on the Minnesota Hospital Association’s public network. Feinwachs argued that the emails were protected by attorney-client privilege and the attorney work-product doctrine. He also argued that Chief Judge John R. Tunheim might still decide whether the emails qualified as work product.

Court’s reasoning

The court applied the law-of-the-case doctrine, which generally requires courts to follow decisions already made earlier in the same case. Chief Judge Tunheim had previously ruled that the emails found on the association’s server were “not private” and had denied a motion seeking to exclude them. The court explained that placing the communications on a public work network exposed confidential information to a third party and destroyed any privilege that might have existed.

The court rejected Feinwachs’s argument that Chief Judge Tunheim had left the work-product issue open. It determined that the cited hearing discussion concerned different communications involving Minnesota Provider Coalition members after July 23, 2010, not the emails at issue here.

Ruling

Judge Steven E. Rau denied Feinwachs’s Motion for Further Consideration of Sealing. The court affirmed the February 8, 2019 order concerning sealing and directed the clerk to immediately unseal ECF Nos. 227, 228, 333, 334, 335, 336, 337, 349, 350, 353, and 354.