B.C.F. Oil Refining, Inc. v. Consolidated Edison Co. of New York, Inc.

171 F.R.D. 57, 1997 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1078, 1997 WL 43091
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. New York
DecidedJanuary 29, 1997
DocketNo. 94 Civ. 8565(CBM)
StatusPublished
Cited by48 cases

This text of 171 F.R.D. 57 (B.C.F. Oil Refining, Inc. v. Consolidated Edison Co. of New York, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
B.C.F. Oil Refining, Inc. v. Consolidated Edison Co. of New York, Inc., 171 F.R.D. 57, 1997 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1078, 1997 WL 43091 (S.D.N.Y. 1997).

Opinion

OPINION

MOTLEY, District Judge.

Plaintiff BCF Oil Refining, Inc., formerly an oil refining company, brought this action against defendant Consolidated Edison Company of New York, Inc., (“Con Edison”) alleging that Con Edison distributed contaminated oil to plaintiff. Plaintiff has also brought claims against other entities for allegedly transporting such contaminated oil from Con Edison and delivering it to plaintiff. The matter currently before the court is the resolution of a discovery dispute that has arisen between plaintiff and defendant Con Edison.

I. BACKGROUND

Defendant Con Edison seeks to compel production of 50 documents which plaintiff has refused to produce on the grounds that they are privileged under the work product doctrine. While the documents cover a wide variety of subjects, they all concern communications with and work performed by plaintiffs expert and the expert’s subcontractor. Defendant argues that all of these documents should be produced in accordance with Rule 26, subsections (a)(2) and (b)(4), which require that an expert disclose all material “considered by the [expert] witness in forming the opinion.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 26(a)(2), (b)(4). Plaintiff maintains that (1) all material considered by the expert has been produced, (2) the contested material is not within the scope of 26(b)(4), and (3) the information is privileged under Rule 26(b)(3), the codification of the work product doctrine. The court has been provided with all of the documents for in camera review.

II. DISCUSSION

The documents may be divided into five categories. First, there are those documents which, though coming from plaintiffs expert (or sent to him) have nothing to do with the preparation of his expert report or his expert testimony. These documents need not be produced. However, the second category of documents, consisting of material consulted or generated by the expert in connection with his role as an expert, must be produced. The third category of documents are those which contain data provided by plaintiffs counsel to the expert for his review. Significantly, these documents do not contain the attorney’s mental impressions or opinions but merely relay facts which the expert is presumably expected to consider. These documents also must be produced. The documents of the fourth category, which contain the thoughts and mental impressions of the attorney and were given to the expert for his consideration, require the most rigorous analysis since there is a clear split of authori[61]*61ty on how to deal with them. However, for the reasons that follow, the court holds that these documents must also be produced. Finally, there is a series of documents consisting of notes taken or memoranda generated by counsel after having had oral conversations with the expert. These documents were never shown to the expert, and accordingly, they are privileged work product and do not have to be produced.

A. Documents Unrelated to Expert’s Testimony

These documents can be split into two subeategories: (1) invoices sent either by the expert or the subcontractor to plaintiff, and (2) material dealing with the expert’s role not as an expert, but only as a consultant for plaintiff. Each of these is discussed in turn.

1. Invoices

Documents 30, 31, 33, 34, 40, 42, 44, 45, 471

This matter is easily dealt with, as there is nothing in Rule 26 which requires a party to turn over invoices that are not directly related to the production of an expert report. These are not documents which are “considered” by an expert in making his opinion and would be of little use to defendant in his cross-examination.2

2. Material Related to Expert’s Role as Consultant

Documents 13, 18, 23, 24, 35, 36, 37, 38, 50

The expert in this case was not hired by plaintiff exclusively to give testimony about the alleged contamination of plaintiffs storage facility by defendants. He was also hired as a technical consultant whom plaintiff used in order to conduct depositions of adverse parties, formulate discovery requests, and perform similar tasks which required expertise of a technical nature. Defendant argues that documents relating to the expert’s role as consultant should be disclosed and that plaintiff should not be able to use the “gray area between the experts’ testifying and nontestifying capacities to shield information that relates to the opinion expressed in [the expert’s] August 1996 expert report.” Defendant Con Edison’s Response Letter to Plaintiffs Counsel’s 11/3/96 (Nov. 15,1996).

The case of Beverage Marketing v. Ogilvy & Mather Direct Response, Inc., 563 F.Supp. 1013 (S.D.N.Y.1983) addresses this issue directly. In that case, the defendant refused to produce an expert report3, arguing that it was meant only as “an analysis of [plaintiffs expert] report” and did not relate directly to the expert testimony of defendant. The court rejected this argument and ordered the report produced. Significantly, however, the court did state:

It is conceivable that an expert could be retained to testify and in addition to advise counsel outside of the subject of his testimony. Under such a circumstance it might be possible to claim a work product privilege if this delineation were clearly made. Such is not this circumstance.

Id. at 1014.

This principle was later applied in the ease of Detwiler v. Offenbecher, 124 F.R.D. 545 (S.D.N.Y.1989). In that case, the defendant sought to compel documents reviewed by the plaintiffs expert for the purpose of proposing questions to a particular witness at a deposition. The court held that these documents did not have to be produced since they were unrelated to the expert’s testimony. The court did state, however, that “to the extent [the expert] reviewed documents in his role as an expert that he previously had reviewed in his role as consultant, the delineation between those roles would become blurred and those documents would be discoverable under Beverage Marketing. ” Id. at 546.

[62]*62The rule to be gleaned from these two Southern District cases is that documents having no relation to the expert’s role as an expert need not be produced but that any ambiguity as to the role played by the expert when reviewing or generating documents should be resolved in favor of the party seeking discovery.

In this case, plaintiff insists that the vast majority of the documents submitted relate to the expert’s role as a consultant. However, the court has found only ten documents in which this is clearly established. These ten documents deal either with documents requests or preparations for depositions and plaintiff will not be required to produce these documents. All other documents, however, which plaintiff claims have nothing to do with the expert’s testimony, cannot be withheld on the authority of Beverage Marketing and Detwiler since it is not clear whether the expert reviewed them solely as a consultant or whether they informed his expert opinion as well.

B. Material Generated By the Expert In Connection With His Report and Expert Testimony

Documents 4,7,10,11, 22,28,29, 32,43

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171 F.R.D. 57, 1997 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1078, 1997 WL 43091, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/bcf-oil-refining-inc-v-consolidated-edison-co-of-new-york-inc-nysd-1997.