Eagle-Picher Industries, Inc. v. United States

11 Cl. Ct. 452, 1987 U.S. Claims LEXIS 1
CourtUnited States Court of Claims
DecidedJanuary 12, 1987
DocketNos. 170-83C, 16-84C
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 11 Cl. Ct. 452 (Eagle-Picher Industries, Inc. v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Court of Claims primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Eagle-Picher Industries, Inc. v. United States, 11 Cl. Ct. 452, 1987 U.S. Claims LEXIS 1 (cc 1987).

Opinion

ORDER

NETTESHEIM, Judge.

Plaintiffs UNR Industries, Inc., and UN-ARCO Industries, Inc. (“plaintiffs”), two of [454]*454the plaintiffs in these consolidated cases, have moved for an order compelling answers to their third set of interrogatories and requests for production of documents. Defendant has opposed, and plaintiffs have replied. The comprehensive submissions of the parties have been reviewed, and argument is deemed unnecessary.

FACTS

Plaintiffs seek documents and other sources of information relating to a written statement and the testimony of Deputy Assistant Attorney General Robert L. Will-more of the United States Department of Justice before the Subcommittee on Labor Standards, Committee on Education and Labor of the House of Representatives. Mr. Willmore appeared before the subcommittee on June 25, 1985, in connection with oversight hearings on “The State of the Asbestos Litigation”; his oral testimony, which incorporated his written statement, was transcribed under the caption “Federal Involvement in Compensating Asbestos-related Disease Victims” and published as Hearings on Compensation for Occupational Diseases, Hearings Before the Sub-comm. on Labor Standards of the House Comm, on Education and Labor, 99th Cong., 1st Sess. 296 (1985). (Mr. Will-more’s testimony is quoted in this order from the transcript used in plaintiffs’ interrogatories.) It appears that Mr. Willmore’s testimony was requested and that he was not under any compulsion. After Mr. Will-more had presented his status report or overview of the asbestos litigation, including the litigation position taken by the United States, and had presented the Administration’s legislative position that the asbestos manufacturers should not be relieved of their responsibility for damages paid and payable to asbestos victims, the following exchange took place:

Mr. MURPHY. Okay. Before you became associated with the Department of Justice, or probably the Administration, in 1978 the Justice Department settled an asbestos lawsuit in Tyler, Texas, by agreeing to pay over $5 million to a group of plaintiffs.
If the government has no liability, why do you suppose the government settled in this regard to award some claimants in Tyler, Texas, an award and yet stand fast on their policy today to deny benefits?
Mr. WILLMORE. Of course, I wasn’t at the Department of Justice at the time, and the only information I have is sort of second-hand and third-hand. What led the government to settle in the case has been written about extensively. Even recently in a series of articles in the New Yorker, there has been some discussion of that.
It is my understanding—and, again, I want to emphasize, this is second- and third-hand information—that the Department of Justice consistently asserted that it had no liability in the case both on factual and legal grounds.
It settled the case, however, by and large, because of tremendous pressure that was placed on the government by the judge and by the other parties to join into a settlement, and I think the Department of Justice, or at least the officials of the Department of Justice, made a litigation strategy decision that, given this pressure that they were facing, and given the relatively modest amount of money which was being requested of the government in the case, that they were better off settling out, even though they felt they had no liability, than going to trial, devoting considerable litigation resources, possibly before a very hostile judge, the hostility perhaps the result of the government’s failure to settle or enter into the settlement, and then being involved in the litigation which would drag on for years.
I think it was a litigation strategy decision, in other words. I don’t think it was a decision having to do with their perception that the government was liable on the facts or the law.

Tr. 16-17. This testimony will be referred to as Tyler I. Mr. Murphy thereupon requested records of the “real justification, the factual justification, that the depart[455]*455ment would have given Congress for the settlement of this case.” Id. at 17. In his submission of October 22, 1985, Mr. Will-more declined to turn over this documentation on the ground that ongoing litigation would be compromised, although he furnished the “Stipulation for Compromise Settlement” in Tyler I.

Other Tyler cases were discussed by Mr. Willmore, referred to as Tyler II:

Mr. MURPHY. In a second Tyler settlement, the government paid no money but agreed to litigate claims for asbestos plaintiffs in an international court, I believe, to bring in South African producers. Why was such a settlement reached a second time if you assert no liability? Do you know?
Mr. WILLMORE. Again, we asserted and continue to assert very strongly that there is no liability. On the other hand, it’s a trial. We often enter into, as a matter of litigation strategy, because we have limited resources, we can’t try all the cases we’re in—we often enter into settlements where we, in effect, can do something that gets us out of the case and where we don’t end up conceding liability.
In this case, the other defendants indicated, and the plaintiffs indicated, that if the government would pursue those international claims, because they were having a very hard time pursuing those international claims, and the government had an advantage in that regard, they would not pursue the issue of government liability.
We looked at it, and we decided that that seemed to be, from a litigation strategy standpoint, a fair resolution. It got us out of the case that we have had to devote a lot of resources to for a long time, and that was the reason for the government’s decision to go along with that agreement.

Id. at 19. Plaintiffs contend that the quoted remarks, and others to similar effect, waived the attorney-client privilege and the immunity of the work product doctrine. Defendant asserts both privileges—primarily the work product doctrine, maintains that no waiver has occurred, and further argues that the discovery requests are overbroad and that compliance therewith would be unduly burdensome.

Insofar as plaintiffs seek documents and other sources of information on most of the statements not relating to the Tyler settlements that Mr. Willmore made in writing and in his oral presentation to the subcommittee, the requests are not discussed individually or by category, although defendant’s opposition summarizes the topics. If there are distinctions to be drawn among these requests, the opportunity to make them has not been taken. Therefore, the approach to the remaining requests is whether discovery in gross of the non-Tyler settlement documents and information should be allowed. Plaintiffs argue that summarizing the Government’s litigation position waived any privilege and that many of the documents called for are not attorney-client communications or work product. Defendant resists disclosure primarily based on the work product doctrine and the alleged undue burden that the discovery will impose.

DISCUSSION

In connection with his appearance before Congress, Mr.

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Bluebook (online)
11 Cl. Ct. 452, 1987 U.S. Claims LEXIS 1, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/eagle-picher-industries-inc-v-united-states-cc-1987.