Railware, Inc. v. National Railroad Passenger Corporation
- Katherine Failla
- 1:22-cv-05013
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 5
In Railware v. National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Judge Failla granted Amtrak’s request to let four in-house attorneys review highly confidential discovery.
Amtrak’s four named in-house attorneys may review Railware’s highly confidential, attorneys’-eyes-only discovery materials temporarily, subject to a permanent protective order to be submitted jointly by the parties.
What happened
Railware, Inc. sued National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak. The dispute summarized here concerned whether four Amtrak in-house attorneys could review materials that Railware had marked highly confidential and for attorneys’ eyes only.
Railware argued that Amtrak’s attorneys were involved in business decisions and that access could risk disclosure of Railware’s technical, business, and trade-secret information. Amtrak sought access while the court considered a permanent protective order governing confidential materials.
Judge Katherine Polk Failla granted Amtrak’s request and ordered Railware to allow the four named attorneys to review the materials pending entry of a permanent protective order. She also ordered the parties to submit a joint proposed protective order and directed the Clerk to terminate the pending motions at docket entries 88 and 89.
The detailed version
- Railware, Inc. v. National Railroad Passenger Corporation · No. 1:22-cv-05013
- Katherine Failla
- Mar. 5, 2024
Background
The court addressed Amtrak’s request for access for four of its in-house attorneys to discovery materials that Railware designated Highly Confidential – Attorneys’ Eyes Only. Railware opposed the request and asked the court to deny it. Railware also asked the court to enter a proposed protective order with two confidentiality levels, including a level that would not permit access by in-house counsel.
Railware argued that Amtrak’s in-house attorneys were involved in “competitive decisionmaking,” including licensing and settlement matters, and therefore might improperly disclose or use Railware’s confidential and trade-secret information. Railware also argued that Amtrak would not be prejudiced because it had retained outside counsel and because Railware had already agreed to permit access to some specifically identified materials.
Court’s reasoning
The court disagreed with Railware’s comparison to Intel Corp. v. VIA Technologies, Inc. In that case, the court explained, the parties were direct competitors that earned money by licensing similar technology to third parties. Here, the court found that Amtrak and Railware were not competitors because Amtrak does not earn revenue by licensing its technology to other railroads. The court therefore concluded that Amtrak’s in-house attorneys’ involvement in licensing through litigation did not implicate competitive decisionmaking.
The court also stated that, to the extent Railware competed with Amtrak for Amtrak’s own business, Railware appeared already to have lost that competition. The court concluded that allowing Amtrak’s in-house attorneys to access the highly confidential materials would not threaten Railware’s competitive position.
Ruling
The court granted Amtrak’s request and ordered Railware to permit the four named Amtrak attorneys to access the highly confidential materials while the court considered a permanent protective order. The parties were ordered to jointly submit a proposed protective order by the deadline in the governing case-management and scheduling order. The Clerk was directed to terminate the pending motions at docket entries 88 and 89. The order concerns access to discovery materials; it does not decide the underlying claims in the case.
Read the full 5-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.