Barr Marine Products Co. v. Borg-Warner Corp.

84 F.R.D. 631, 28 Fed. R. Serv. 2d 978, 5 Fed. R. Serv. 407, 1979 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 8358
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. Pennsylvania
DecidedNovember 27, 1979
DocketCiv. A. No. 77-4333
StatusPublished
Cited by38 cases

This text of 84 F.R.D. 631 (Barr Marine Products Co. v. Borg-Warner Corp.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Barr Marine Products Co. v. Borg-Warner Corp., 84 F.R.D. 631, 28 Fed. R. Serv. 2d 978, 5 Fed. R. Serv. 407, 1979 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 8358 (E.D. Pa. 1979).

Opinion

OPINION

JOSEPH S. LORD, III, Chief Judge.

At issue are twenty-five documents, submitted for in camera inspection, that plaintiff says are discoverable and defendant asserts are protected by the attorney-client privilege. A brief summary of the state of the law with regard to the privilege will be helpful in assessing the privilege claim as to each document.

THE ATTORNEY-CLIENT PRIVILEGE:

The purpose of the attorney-client privilege is to encourage complete disclosure of information between client and attorney. As the Third Circuit has observed in its most recent opinion on the privilege, In re Grand Jury Investigation, 599 F.2d 1224 (1979), perhaps the most frequently cited formulation of the privilege is that by Judge Wyzanski in United States v. United Shoe Machinery Corp., 89 F.Supp. 357, 358-59 (D.Mass.1950):

The privilege applies only if (1) the asserted holder of the privilege is or sought to become a client; (2) the person to whom the communication was made (a) is a member of the bar of a court, or his subordinate and (b) in connection with this communication is acting as a lawyer; (3) the communication relates to a fact of which the attorney was informed (a) by his client (b) without the presence of strangers (c) for the purpose of securing primarily either (i) an opinion on law or (ii) legal services or (iii) assistance in some legal proceeding, and not (d) for the purpose of committing a crime or tort; and (4) the privilege has been (a) claimed and (b) not waived by the client.

The United Shoe test obviously raises further questions, e. g., who is a client for purposes of the privilege, what are the perimeters of confidentiality, what is meant by “acting as a lawyer” providing primarily legal services. Obviously, these factors can be narrowly or broadly construed. The significance of this lies in the fact that once a communication is deemed privileged, it is immune from discovery, unlike the work product doctrine, not at issue here, where a showing of good cause can overcome the protection. Hickman v. Taylor, 329 U.S. 495, 67 S.Ct. 385, 91 L.Ed. 451 (1947); In re Grand Jury Investigation, supra.

In balancing the concerns of insuring the fullest freedom and honesty of communication against the policy of liberal discovery, the Third Circuit has concluded that “because the privilege obstructs the search for [634]*634the truth and because its benefits are, at best, ‘indirect and speculative,’ it must be ‘strictly confined within the narrowest possible limits consistent with the logic of its principle’ In re Grand Jury Investigation, supra at 1235, quoting 8 Wigmore on Evidence § 2291, at 554 (McNaughton rev. 1961).

In this light the Third Circuit adopted the control group test, In re Grand Jury Investigation, supra at 1237, which offers a narrow definition of who is a corporate client for purposes of asserting the privilege.

As first articulated, under the control group test the privilege applies:

if the employee making the communication, of whatever rank he may be, is in a position to control or even to take a substantial part in a decision about any action which the corporation may take upon the advice of the attorney, or if he is an authorized member of a body or group which has that authority.

City of Philadelphia v. Westinghouse Electric Corp., 210 F.Supp. 483, 485 (E.D.Pa.), mandamus and prohibition denied sub nom. General Electric Co. v. Kirkpatrick, 312 F.2d 742 (3d Cir. 1962), cert. denied, 372 U.S. 943, 83 S.Ct. 937, 9 L.Ed.2d 969 (1963). The point is that the corporation is the client; if an employee is not in the control group he or she does not personify the corporate client. As Judge Hannum of this court has observed,

The significant criteria are not the labels or titles used to designate various individuals, but rather the actual duties and responsibilities which are in fact delegated to these individuals. Such limitations must be placed upon the designation of the control group, otherwise, that group itself would be vested with authority to determine those to whom the privilege would apply, thus, extending the concept beyond the purpose for which it was adopted.

Congoleum Industries, Inc. v. G.A.F. Corp., 49 F.R.D. 82, 85 (E.D.Pa.1969), aff’d without op., 478 F.2d 1398 (3rd Cir. 1973). Moreover, if one member of the control group relays legal advice to another member the privilege is not lost. SCM Corp. v. Xerox Corp., 70 F.R.D. 508 (D.Conn.1976), appeal dismissed, 534 F.2d 1031 (2d Cir. 1976); United States v. Aluminum Co. of America, 193 F.Supp. 251 (N.D.N.Y.1960), Note, Attorney-client Privilege for Corporate Clients: The Control Group Test, 84 Harv.L.Rev. 424 (1970).

For a communication to be protected by the attorney-client privilege, confidentiality is essential. Thus, communications between attorney and client are not privileged if made in the presence of or communicated to third parties.

Since the purpose of the privilege is to insure open disclosure between client and attorney, the privilege only protects client/attorney communications. Thus, a communication between the attorney and any third party not the client is not privileged even if the information contained therein is then conveyed by the attorney to the client. In this light, “[I]n so far as the subject of these communications was the giving of legal or other advice upon the basis of facts disclosed to the attorney by a person outside the organization of defendant and its affiliates the communication is not privileged.” United States v. United Shoe Machinery Corp., supra, 89 F.Supp. at 359. See also, Tutson v. Holland, 60 App. D.C. 188, 190, 50 F.2d 338, 340 (D.C.Cir.), cert. denied, 284 U.S. 632, 52 S.Ct. 21, 76 L.Ed. 538 (1931).

The communication must be made by the client to the attorney acting as an attorney and not, e. g., as a business advisor. North American Mortgage Investors v. First Wisconsin National Bank of Milwaukee, 69 F.R.D. 9 (E.D.Wis.1975); Burlington Industries v. Exxon Corp., 65 F.R.D. 26 (D.Md.1974); Zenith Radio Corp. v. Radio Corp. of America, 121 F.Supp. 792 (D.Del. 1954). In sum, attorneys do not “ ‘act as lawyers’ when not primarily engaged in legal activities.” Zenith Radio Corp. v. Radio Corp. of America, supra, at 794.

In addition, the communication must have as a primary purpose the securing or [635]*635providing of legal services. Thus, documents that are reports “of general corporate business decisions as opposed to legal advice based upon confidential information” are not privileged. Congoleum Industries, Inc. v. G.A.F. Corp., supra, 49 F.R.D. at 86. See also Burlington Industries v. Exxon Corp., supra; Commonwealth of Puerto Rico v. S.S. Zoe Colocotroni, 61 F.R.D. 653 (D.Puerto Rico 1974).

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84 F.R.D. 631, 28 Fed. R. Serv. 2d 978, 5 Fed. R. Serv. 407, 1979 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 8358, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/barr-marine-products-co-v-borg-warner-corp-paed-1979.