Sportvision, Inc v. MLB Advanced Media L.P.
- Paul Gardephe
- 1:18-cv-03025
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 6
In Sportvision v. MLB Advanced Media, Judge Figueredo denied compelled production of a privileged email but ordered redactions to its nonprivileged portion.
Sportvision, Inc. must provide proposed redactions to the email’s partly nonprivileged first section, while MLB Advanced Media, L.P. is denied compelled access to the privileged portions. ESPN is discussed as Sportvision’s co-owner of the patent and recipient of the email.
What happened
In Sportvision, Inc. et al. v. MLB Advanced Media, L.P., MLB Advanced Media questioned former Sportvision scientist Rick Cavallaro about an email that Sportvision had produced in discovery. Sportvision’s lawyer instructed Cavallaro not to answer, claiming the email was protected by attorney-client privilege.
The court reviewed the email privately. Sportvision argued that copied communications about legal advice concerning possible infringement of a jointly owned patent remained privileged when shared with ESPN, another patent co-owner. MLB Advanced Media argued that the email was not privileged or that sharing it with ESPN waived the privilege.
The court found the copied communications privileged and held that sharing them with ESPN did not waive the privilege because Sportvision and ESPN shared a legal interest in protecting the patent. The court denied MLB Advanced Media’s request to compel production of the email but ordered Sportvision to propose redactions to the email’s partly nonprivileged first section. Judge Valerie Figueredo issued the order.
The detailed version
- Sportvision, Inc v. MLB Advanced Media L.P. · No. 1:18-cv-03025
- Paul Gardephe
- Sept. 26, 2022
Background
During a pretrial deposition, MLB Advanced Media, L.P. attempted to question Rick Cavallaro, a former Sportvision, Inc. chief scientist and an inventor of the patent at issue, about an October 18, 2013 email. Sportvision’s counsel instructed Cavallaro not to answer and claimed that the email was privileged. The parties jointly asked the court to review the email privately and decide whether it was protected.
The email was sent by Hank Adams, Sportvision’s former chief executive officer, to Jed Drake, an ESPN employee. It contained three sections. The first section was Adams’s own text. The second copied a September 25, 2013 email from Sportvision employee Mike Jakob summarizing a call involving Sportvision employees and outside patent counsel Burt Magen. The third copied a September 25, 2013 email from Cavallaro containing technical analysis of the patent.
Sportvision argued that the copied communications concerned legal advice about possible infringement of the patent by Fox. It also argued that sending the communications to ESPN did not waive attorney-client privilege because Sportvision and ESPN co-owned the patent and shared a legal interest in protecting it. MLB Advanced Media disputed both the privilege and the application of the common-interest exception.
Court’s analysis
Attorney-client privilege protects confidential communications made to obtain or provide legal advice. The court explained that voluntary disclosure ordinarily waives the privilege, but disclosure to a party engaged in a common legal enterprise does not necessarily waive it. The party claiming the privilege bears the burden of showing that it applies.
The court found that the second and third sections of the email contained communications between Sportvision personnel and its outside patent counsel, or technical information needed for counsel to provide legal advice. The communications concerned possible infringement of the patent and were intended to remain confidential.
The court also found that the common-interest exception applied to Sportvision’s disclosure to ESPN. Sportvision and ESPN were co-owners of the patent, and both were addressing possible infringement by Fox. The court concluded that they therefore shared a legal interest in protecting the patent, even though they may have disagreed about whether Fox should receive a license. The absence of an attorney for ESPN on the email did not prevent the exception from applying.
Ruling
The court held that the privileged communications in the email were protected from discovery and that the privilege was not waived. It denied MLB Advanced Media’s request for an order compelling production of the email.
The court separately determined that some portions of Adams’s first section were not privileged because they did not concern or relate to legal advice. It ordered Sportvision to submit proposed redactions to that section by October 5, 2022, so that a redacted copy could be produced to MLB Advanced Media. The second and third sections were to be redacted as privileged.
Judge Valerie Figueredo signed the order.
Read the full 6-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.