Sanimax USA, LLC v. City of South St. Paul.
- Ann Montgomery
- 0:20-cv-01210
- U.S. District Court · District of Minnesota
- 33
In Sanimax v. City of South St. Paul, Magistrate Judge Wright granted in part and denied in part Sanimax’s motion to compel discovery.
Sanimax USA, LLC, the City of South St. Paul, and Short Elliott Hendrickson, Inc.; the order determined which disputed discovery materials had to be produced, remained protected, or required further court review.
What happened
Sanimax USA, LLC v. City of South St. Paul concerned Sanimax’s request for documents from the City and its consulting engineer, Short Elliott Hendrickson, Inc. Sanimax challenged the City’s zoning and odor ordinances and sought communications that the City claimed were protected by attorney-client privilege.
The court reviewed a sample of the disputed documents privately and decided that some communications involved legal advice while others involved ordinary business or technical discussions. It also decided that the City had not lost the privilege merely because its specific objections were late, because it had made a general privilege objection and Sanimax had not shown meaningful prejudice.
Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Cowan Wright granted in part and denied in part the motion to compel. The court ordered production of specified documents, denied production of others, required further private review of the remaining documents, unsealed one docket entry, and kept another sealed.
The detailed version
- Sanimax USA, LLC v. City of South St. Paul. · No. 0:20-cv-01210
- Ann Montgomery
- Oct. 18, 2021
Background
Sanimax sued the City of South St. Paul over the City’s zoning amendment and odor ordinances. Among its claims, Sanimax alleged under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 that the City retaliated against it for an earlier lawsuit. During discovery, Sanimax sought communications involving the City, Short Elliott Hendrickson, Inc. (SEH), and several City officials and employees.
The City had retained SEH to provide technical engineering support, conduct odor monitoring, respond to odor complaints, help develop and enforce odor ordinances, and assist with odor-management plans. The City withheld 131 documents involving SEH based on attorney-client privilege and asserted other protections for some materials. Sanimax argued that the privilege had been waived because the City and SEH did not timely assert specific privilege objections.
Privilege and Waiver
The court declined to find waiver. Although the City did not make specific privilege objections to several discovery requests, it made a general objection covering attorney-client privilege and related protections. The court also found that Sanimax had not shown meaningful prejudice from the lack of specific objections. It therefore considered whether the documents were privileged rather than removing the privilege protection as a sanction.
The court held that SEH’s employees could qualify as the functional equivalent of City employees for attorney-client privilege purposes. It relied on SEH’s extensive role in the City’s odor-control work, the City’s supervision of that work, SEH’s assistance with ordinance development and litigation-related reports, and SEH’s need to obtain legal advice from the City Attorney to perform its duties. This ruling applied only when the communications otherwise met the requirements for privileged communications.
The court applied the rule that attorney-client privilege protects confidential communications made to obtain or provide legal advice, but does not protect communications merely because a lawyer received or was copied on them. The court also considered whether the communications concerned the sender’s duties, were made to help the City obtain legal advice, and were shared only with people who needed to know their contents.
Rulings on Documents
After reviewing a representative sample of 25 documents privately, the court ruled as follows:
- The motion to compel was granted as to Privilege Log 1, 1-A, 38, 47, 56, 57, 59, 60, 61, 76, 77, and 94. These documents were not protected by attorney-client privilege because they involved notes, technical or logistical discussions, business matters, or communications shared with a person who did not need to receive privileged information. - The motion to compel was denied as to Privilege Log 2, 2-A, 2-B, 3, 6, 7, 7-A, 54, 63, 66, 84, 87, 101, 113, 115, 116, 118, 124, and 130. The court found these communications protected by attorney-client privilege or, for some reports, by the work-product doctrine, which protects certain materials prepared in anticipation of litigation. - As to Docket Entry 80-5, the motion to compel was granted in part and denied in part. The court found that one April 2, 2020 email conveyed legal advice and was protected, while other material identified as CITY003199-3200 had to be produced if it had not already been provided because the record did not show that it involved legal advice.
Order
The court ordered the City and SEH to produce the documents listed in the order granting the motion within 15 days after the order’s issuance, unless the order was appealed. They also had to review the remaining documents on the privilege log, meet and confer with Sanimax about possible production, and submit unresolved documents for further private court review within the same period. The court reserved Sanimax’s request for reasonable expenses under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37.
The court ordered Docket Entry 80-2 unsealed and ordered Docket Entry 80-5 to remain sealed until further notice. The final disposition was that Sanimax’s motion to compel was granted in part and denied in part.
Read the full 33-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.