Baxter International, Inc. v. Becton Dickinson and Company

District Court, N.D. Illinois·Decided November 22, 2019·No. 1:17-cv-07576·Unknown

Opinion

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS EASTERN DIVISION BAXTER INTERNATIONAL, INC., ) ) Case No. 17 C 7576 Plaintiff, ) ) District Judge Lefkow Vv. ) ) Magistrate Judge Schenkier BECTON, DICKINSON AND COMPANY, ) ) Defendant, )

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER Plaintiff Baxter International, Inc. (“Baxter”) has filed a motion to compel—its fourth in this patent infringement litigation—asking us to order defendant Becton, Dickinson and Company (“BD”) to (1) produce certain withheld and redacted communications involving employees of Carmel Pharma AB (a Swedish company that BD acquired in 2011); and (2) produce documents that a witness reviewed to refresh her recollection before testifying at a Rule 30(b)(6) deposition (docs. ## 188, 190: Pl.’s Mot., at 1).' The motion has been fully briefed (see doc. # 203: Def.’s Opp’n; doc. # 205: PI.’s Reply). Our rulings on the motion are set forth below.”

' Baxter’s motion also asks us to order BD to produce a deposition witness to testify for more than three hours about certain Rule 30(b)(6) topics and to produce various other documents about royalties, clinical training, and general warranty policies (P!.’s Mot. at 15). Baxter forfeited these contentions by failing to develop them and, as such, we already denied that portion of Baxter’s motion during the October 11, 2019 motion hearing (doc. # 196). See, e.g., Batson v. Live Nation Entm’t, Ine., 746 F.3d 827, 833 (7th Cir. 2014) (party forfeited an argument that “was perfunctory and underdeveloped”). 2 Baxter filed its motion and Exhibit B to its motion under seal (docs. ## 190, 193). If we refer to one of these sealed documents, we attempt to do so without revealing any information that could be reasonably deemed confidential. Nonetheless, to the extent we discuss confidential information, we have done so because it is necessary to explain the path of our reasoning. See Jn re Specht, 622 F.3d 697, 701 (7th Cir. 2010) (“Documents that affect the disposition of federal litigation are presumptively open to public view, even if the litigants strongly prefer secrecy, unless a statute, rule, or privilege justifies confidentiality”); Union Oil Co. of Cal. v. Leavell, 220 F.3d 562, 568 (7th Cir. 2000) (explaining that a judge’s “opinions and orders belong in the public domain”).

I. Baxter first seeks an order compelling BD to produce or remove redactions from more than 200 withheld or redacted documents that purportedly reflect legal advice provided to Carmel Pharma (the Swedish company acquired by BD) or its employees about patent-related issues (Pl.’s Mot. at 2-3, 5-10). We will refer to these documents as the Swedish Documents.’ BD asserts that all of the Swedish Documents—except Withheld Document 154, for which BD does not provide a date—pre-date September 2010 (doc. # 188-2, at 2-13: Def.’s Sth Suppl. Privilege Log, at 1-2, 11; id, at 14-27: Def.’s 5th Suppl. Redaction Log, at 1-11). BD has withheld or redacted the Swedish Documents on the basis of attorney-client privilege (Def.’s 5th Suppl. Privilege Log at 1- 2, 11; Def.’s Sth Suppl. Redaction Log at 1-11). Baxter contends that (1) Swedish law governs BD’s assertion of attorney-client privilege over the Swedish Documents; and (2) this privilege assertion is improper because under Swedish law prior to September 2010, “communications between patent lawyers and their clients were not protected from disclosure by the attorney-client privilege” (Pl.’s Mot. at 6-10). BD counters that (1) the Swedish Documents are privileged under United States law; and (2) even if United States law does not apply, the Swedish Documents are likewise privileged under Swedish law (Def.’s Opp’n at 3-7). A. We begin by addressing whether the law of Sweden or the law of the United States governs this privilege dispute. Courts in this district, as a matter of comity and as a functional approach to

3 The Swedish Documents correspond to the following document entries from BD’s Fifth Supplemental Privilege and Redaction Logs: Withheld Documents 1, 5, 9-11, 19-22, and 154, and Redacted Documents 1-177, 198, 199, 201, 202, 204-07, 209-12, 214-25, 227-30, and 234-49 (PI.’s Mot. at 3).

the problem, “look to the foreign nation’s law to determine the extent to which the [attorney-client] privilege may attach” to communications with foreign individuals. SmithKline Beecham Corp. v. Apotex Corp., 193 F.R.D. 530, 535 (N.D. Ill. 2000) (citing cases); accord Oct. 15, 2014 Order in Alfdex AB v. Hengst SE & Co. KG, No. 14 CV 50038, doc. # 172 (“Alfdex Order”), at 3. BD asserts, in contrast, that “courts typically consider whether the communications ‘touch base’ with the United States in determining which jurisdiction’s law applies” (Def.’s Opp’n at 3 (citing Cadence Pharms., Inc. v. Fresenius Kabi USA, LLC, 996 F. Supp. 2d 1015, 1019 (S.D. Cal. 2014)).* But BD fails “to sincerely acknowledge [] that [courts in this [d]istrict have decided to forego the ‘touching base’ test.” Alfdex Order at 3. In any event, BD makes no attempt to explain how the Swedish Documents “touch base” with the United States (Def.’s Opp’n at 3). Instead, BD addresses “the communications challenged by Baxter under Sweden’s laws” (/d.). Following the comity/functional approach utilized by courts in this district, we do as well, and we apply the law of the foreign nation, Sweden, to determine whether the Swedish Documents are protected by the attorney-client privilege. B. Next, we must determine which communications are protected by the attorney-client privilege in Sweden. Each party has provided declarations setting forth its interpretation of

4 We also note BD’s assertion that in Jn re Queen’s University at Kingston, 820 F.3d 1287, 1290-91 (Fed. Cir. 2016), the Federal Circuit concluded that its own “law governs the existence of privilege over communications _ between a foreign patentee and its non-attorney patent agents” (Def.’s Opp’n at 3). There is, however, no indication that the Jn re Queen’s University court was asked to consider whether the law of Canada (where the patentee was located) governed the privilege dispute at issue, as opposed to U.S. federal law. Thus, /n re Queen's University does not prohibit us from looking to Swedish law in these circumstances. See Armour & Co. v. Wantock, 323 U.S. 126, 133 (1944) (“[W]ords of our opinions are to be read in the light of the facts of the case under discussion”); LHO Chi. River, L.L.C. v. Perillo, --- F.3d ----, 2019 WL 5851672, at *3 (7th Cir. Nov. 8, 2019) (“{OJur silence in Burford should not be interpreted as a rejection of Octane’s extension to Lanham Act fee-shifting. As pointed out correctly by Defendants, the Burford parties never directed us to Octane in any of their filings”).

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Baxter International, Inc. v. Becton Dickinson and Company, (N.D. Ill. 2019).

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