Athayde v. Dogpound Fitness, Inc.
- Sarah Netburn
- 1:22-cv-09547
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Athayde v. Dogpound Fitness, Judge Netburn ordered production of withheld materials but denied reopening witness Pena’s deposition.
The plaintiff must produce the withheld communications and documents to the defendants by January 8, 2024. The defendants may not reopen Breylis Pena’s deposition based on this ruling.
What happened
In Athayde v. Dogpound Fitness, Inc., the plaintiff’s lawyer withheld communications with witness Breylis Pena and documents Pena provided, claiming they were protected by the work-product rule.
The court explained that this rule can protect materials prepared for litigation, including lawyers’ legal strategies and factual investigation. It found that the communications with Pena did not reveal legal strategies, and that the documents Pena provided were not the result of a serious or specifically directed investigation.
Judge Sarah Netburn granted the defendants’ request to compel production and ordered the plaintiff to provide the withheld materials by January 8, 2024. She denied the defendants’ request to reconsider the ruling barring them from reopening Pena’s deposition because they had already had a full opportunity to question Pena about the past dispute.
The detailed version
- Athayde v. Dogpound Fitness, Inc. · No. 1:22-cv-09547
- Sarah Netburn
- Jan. 5, 2024
Background
The court considered the parties’ letters about the plaintiff’s assertion of work-product protection and reviewed the withheld materials privately. The materials included email communications between the plaintiff’s counsel and non-party witness Breylis Pena, as well as letters, business agreements, and other contracts that Pena voluntarily provided after the plaintiff’s counsel requested them.
Work-Product Analysis
The work-product doctrine generally protects documents and tangible things prepared for litigation or trial from discovery by the opposing party. It can protect factual material gathered during a lawyer’s investigation, called fact work product, and the lawyer’s legal theories and strategies, called opinion work product. Opinion work product receives stronger protection, while fact work product receives qualified protection. The party asserting the protection bears the burden of establishing that it applies.
The court found no legitimate basis for treating the withheld materials as opinion work product. It determined that the communications with Pena were ministerial and did not reveal the plaintiff’s counsel’s mental impressions or litigation strategies. The court also found that the Pena Documents did not reveal counsel’s impressions. Although factual fruits of a lawyer’s investigation can sometimes receive qualified protection, the court concluded that Pena had simply provided “all the documents I could find,” rather than documents resulting from a serious or tailored inquiry. The court also noted that most of the documents were already held by the defendants.
Rulings
The court granted the defendants’ motion to compel production. It ordered the plaintiff to produce the withheld materials by January 8, 2024.
The defendants also asked the court to reconsider its ruling that they could not reopen Pena’s deposition. Judge Sarah Netburn denied that request. The court stated that the withheld materials concerned a past dispute between Pena and the defendants, and that the defendants had already had a full opportunity to question Pena about that dispute during his deposition. The court found that the defendants had not shown good cause to reopen the deposition.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.