Earthworks v. U.S. Department of the Interior

CourtDistrict Court, District of Columbia
DecidedApril 2, 2013
DocketCivil Action No. 2009-1972
StatusPublished

This text of Earthworks v. U.S. Department of the Interior (Earthworks v. U.S. Department of the Interior) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, District of Columbia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Earthworks v. U.S. Department of the Interior, (D.D.C. 2013).

Opinion

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

EARTHWORKS, et al.,

Plaintiffs,

v. Civil Action No. 09-1972 (HHK/JMF)

U.S. DEPT. OF THE INTERIOR, et al.,

Defendants.

MEMORANDUM ORDER

There has been assigned to me the task of reviewing a large number of documents which

the Department of Interior (“DOI”) claims are protected by the attorney-client and, to a lesser

extent, the work product privileges.

The attorney-client privilege protects confidential communications made by a client to a

lawyer for the purpose of securing legal advice or services, 1 while the work product privilege

protects a lawyer’s mental processes while that lawyer is preparing for trial or working in

anticipation thereof. 2 The former is said to advance the crucial societal interest in clients being

candid with their lawyers, 3 while the latter advances the equally important value in zealous

advocacy. 4

Review of privilege logs often discloses that the person doing the log may not understand

the intricacies of the privileges being claimed. Perhaps the greatest deficiency is the failure to

appreciate that the attorney-client privilege does not operate to insulate from disclosure every

1 Banks v. Office of the Senate Sergeant at Arms, 236 F.R.D. 16, 19-20 (D.D.C. 2006). 2 Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(3). 3 Upjohn Co. v. United States, 449 U.S. 383, 389 (1982). 4 Hickman v. Taylor, 329 U. S. 495, 510-11 (1947). possible communication between an attorney and client. It should be obvious that

communications from the attorney to client are not ipso facto protected. To the contrary, the

privilege operates to shield communications from an attorney to a client “only if that

communication is based on confidential information provided by the client.” Mead Data Cent. v.

U.S. Dep’t of the Air Force, 566 F.2d 242, 255 (D.C. Cir. 1977). In that case, the district court

determined that several documents were privileged although the court of appeals found that the

government’s description of the documents gave “no indication as to the confidentiality of the

information on which they were based.” Id. at 254. The court of appeals, therefore, ordered that

the documents be remanded so that the Air Force could shield from disclosure, as privileged,

only those documents where the “information upon which they [were] based was supplied by the

Air Force [to counsel] with the expectation of secrecy and was not known or disclosed to any

third party . . . .” Id.

I have attached to this opinion two charts, which indicate my ruling as to each document.

As will be seen, I have ruled finally on certain documents, but only conditionally as to others.

As I will now explain, the necessity for such conditional rulings is because so many of the

documents are drafts that were exchanged either between two persons or among a group of

persons.

Whether or not a document styled a draft in a privilege log is privileged can be a

multifaceted and fact-bound determination. The transmittal of a communication from a client to

a lawyer with an express request for guidance presents the easy case: “Here is the draft

employment agreement I am going to ask my boss to sign. Let me know if it protects my legal

rights.” In other circumstances, the absence of an explicit request for advice may not doom the

claim of privilege, if the confidential nature of the communication can be discerned from what

2 the lawyer has said or done. For example, a red lined edited draft of the agreement from the

lawyer to the client may, in a certain context, itself permit the inference that the client sent the

draft to the lawyer expecting the lawyer to provide confidential guidance as to contents of the

documents. The process of the exchange may itself bespeak an intention by the client that her

transmittal of the draft be a confidential request for guidance.

On the other hand, and this is particularly true in a governmental situation, the lawyer

may be the chief draftsperson of a particular document which she then sends to her co-workers

for their views and thoughts. While their responses may qualify as communications to a lawyer

intended to be confidential, the lawyer’s draft, transmitted to them, does not yield any

confidential communication from them. In other words, from the lawyer’s draft, we learn only

that she wrote a draft and transmitted it to her clients. Thus, while there are circumstances where

even a draft might yield a secret, client communication (e.g. the draft of a will that provides for

an illegitimate child), the transmittal of drafts in this case does not. That the DOI lawyers and

other employees were in the process of drafting new rules and regulations in response to an order

in this case is hardly a secret. The privilege log itself indicates that such drafting was taking

place.

As a result of the nuanced distinctions I have just elucidated, and because of the obvious

deficiencies in the privilege log, I must make conditional rulings. For example, I cannot tell

from the names of the authors and recipients who are the attorneys and who are the clients. In

several instances, the email address indicates that the person sending or receiving the

electronically stored information is in the Solicitor’s office, and therefore appears to be an

attorney. In all other instances, however, I cannot ascertain from the log who is the lawyer and

who is the client. Furthermore, the log cannot possibly tell me what I need to know—whether

3 the document explicitly or implicitly reveals a communication from a client that was intended to

be confidential. Thus, in its current condition, the privilege log fails me in several particulars.

I will not, however, return to the obligation of reviewing the documents until the parties

consider whether the claims of privilege could be more quickly resolved by resorting to an

agreement pursuant to Rule 502(d) of the Federal Rules of Evidence.

Having reviewed more privilege logs and assertedly privileged documents than I care to

remember, I can state with certainty that the overwhelming majority of “privileged” documents

are insignificant, and their disclosure would never prejudice the party claiming the privilege or

place that party at any tactical disadvantage. Simply put, in my almost 15 years of being a

magistrate judge and my more than 40 years of practicing law, I am still waiting to see that

“smoking gun”–the privileged document that makes a substantial difference to whether a case is

won or lost. This case is no different. To date, I have not seen a single document in this case

that, if revealed, would harm the DOI’s position in this litigation.

Often, as may be true here, the assertion of the attorney-client and work product

privileges is usually and understandably self-protective, lest the failure to assert the privilege as

to one document be deemed a waiver of all documents that deal with the same subject matter.

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Related

Hickman v. Taylor
329 U.S. 495 (Supreme Court, 1947)
Upjohn Co. v. United States
449 U.S. 383 (Supreme Court, 1981)
Banks v. Office of the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms & Doorkeeper
236 F.R.D. 16 (District of Columbia, 2006)

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Earthworks v. U.S. Department of the Interior, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/earthworks-v-us-department-of-the-interior-dcd-2013.