Royal Surplus Lines Insurance v. Sofamor Danek Group, Inc.

190 F.R.D. 505, 1999 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 19266, 1999 WL 1133718
District Court, W.D. Tennessee·Decided October 7, 1999·No. No. 97-2499 GV·Published·Cited by 4 cases

Opinion

ORDER ON PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS AFTER IN CAMERA REVIEW

VESCOVO, United States Magistrate Judge.

Before the court are documents produced to the court by nonparty Sedgwick James of Tennessee, Inc. (“Sedgwick”) for in camera inspection pursuant to this court’s discovery orders dated March 17, 1998 (“the March Order”), and July 31, 1998 (“the July Order”), affirmed by order of the district court on August 5, 1999. Sedgwick and defendant Sofamor Danek Group, Inc. (“SDG”) oppose production of these documents.

As this court has noted in its previous orders, this lawsuit involves a dispute regarding the extent of coverage provided by an insurance policy issued by the plaintiff, Royal Surplus Lines Insurance Company (“Royal”), to SDG against various risks associated with SDG’s products. Royal issued the policy on November 24, 1995, and on February 16,1996, sent SDG a reservation of rights letter. The central question in this lawsuit is whether the policy issued by Royal obligates it to provide coverage and pay the defense costs associated with certain orthopedic bone screw claims against SDG.

In its complaint, Royal alleges, among other things, that SDG engaged in intentional misrepresentations and/or omissions during the policy application process. In general, Royal claims that SDG and Sedgwick concealed material information, provided false information, and failed to correct and update information during the negotiation process. Royal has identified five specific instances of alleged misrepresentation or omission:

1. SDG’s failure to advise Royal that SDG would allocate Multi-District Litigation (“MDL”) General Litigation Expenses to Royal;
2. SDG’s failure to report the magnitude of new claims received during the application period;
3. SDG’s misrepresentation of the level of current and future legal expenses;
4. SDG’s misrepresentation of the status of the class action; and
5. SDG’s misrepresentation of the purpose and effect of the Designated Product Exclusion.

The negotiations between the parties for placement of the Royal policy were facilitated by Sedgwick, SDG’s insurance broker, and Tri-City Brokerage, Inc., a surplus insurance broker that was familiar with Royal. In the course of discovery in this case, Royal has sought the production of a number of documents in the possession of Sedgwick because of its involvement in securing SDG’s multilayer product liability insurance program, particularly the Royal policy.

Sedgwick initially refused to produce approximately 205 documents, asserting theo-[509]*509ríes of attorney-client privilege, work product, and joint defense as a bar to disclosure. After negotiations between the parties whittled the number of disputed documents to approximately forty, this court ruled on most of the remaining documents. Several documents remained hotly in dispute, however. Sedgwick maintained that the remaining documents were covered by attorney-client privilege while Royal argued that many of the documents were either non-privileged or fell within the crime-fraud exception to the privilege.

After determining that Royal had made an initial showing of a factual basis adequate to support a good faith belief that the documents sought might reveal evidence of fraud, the court ordered Sedgwick to produce certain documents for in camera inspection to determine if the documents were indeed protected by the attorney-client privilege, and if so, whether the crime-fraud exception applied. Sedgwick produced the documents to the court in camera on August 23, 1999. After reviewing the documents in camera, the court GRANTS in part and DENIES in part Royal’s motion to compel production as to these documents.

DISCUSSION

The requirements for invocation of the attorney-client privilege have been set forth in the previous orders in this case, familiarity with those orders is presumed, and the requirements will not be repeated here. (March Order at 6-21; July Order at 7-21.)

The attorney-client privilege is a hallowed principle of Anglo-American law, standing as “the oldest of the testimonial privileges protecting confidential communications.” EDNA SELAN EPSTEIN, SECTION OF LITIG., A.B.A., THE ATTORNEY-CLIENT PRIVILEGE AND THE WORK-PRODUCT DOCTRINE 2 (3d ed.1997) (noting that the attorney-client privilege dates to the time of Queen Elizabeth I); see also Upjohn v. United States, 449 U.S. 383, 389, 101 S.Ct. 677, 66 L.Ed.2d 584 (1981). Given the history of the attorney-client privilege and its status as one of “the bastions of ordered liberty,” EPSTEIN at 2, courts are properly hesitant to intrude upon the private communications of clients and their attorneys. Nevertheless, as previously noted, the privilege is not absolute, and in some situations, society’s interest in preventing ongoing illegal conduct outweighs its interest in protecting confidential communications. (July Order at 22.) The crime-fraud exception to the attorney-client privilege is one such situation.

The question now facing the court is what standard of proof is required before a court can order the production of a document under the crime-fraud exception.1 While Tennessee courts have addressed the crime portion of the crime-fraud exception to the attorney-client privilege, no reported decisions from Tennessee have squarely confronted the fraud portion of the exception, nor have the Tennessee courts addressed the evidentiary standard necessary to satisfy the exception in order to compel the production of documents. In the absence of any clear rule of law in Tennessee, this court must once again fashion a rule of decision that Tennessee would most likely adopt. (See March Order at 9; July Order at 14-15.)

As this court noted in its previous orders, Tennessee courts frequently look to state and federal common law when fashioning the contours of the attorney-client privilege. (July Order at 14-15.) See Federal Ins. Co. v. Arthur Anderson & Co., 816 S.W.2d 328, 330 (Tenn.1991) (noting “though presently protected by statute, the rule is rooted in the common law of this State____”); State v. Bobo, 724 S.W.2d 760 (Tenn.Crim.App.1981) (reviewing authority from other jurisdictions and citing various treatises and federal common law in determining that the privilege did not prevent disclosure of the identity of a client). In fashioning a rule of decision regarding the crime-fraud exception, this court has reviewed decisions from a number of other jurisdictions including the Sixth Circuit. See, e.g., In re Grand Jury Proceed[510]*510ings, 183 F.3d 71 (1st Cir.1999) (refusing to explicitly adopt any particular standard for analyzing the crime-fraud exception, but holding that the exception applied under the facts of that case); In re Grand Jury Proceedings, 87 F.3d 377

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Royal Surplus Lines Insurance v. Sofamor Danek Group, Inc., 190 F.R.D. 505, 1999 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 19266, 1999 WL 1133718 (W.D. Tenn. 1999).

190 F.R.D. 505 (Royal Surplus Lines Insurance v. Sofamor Danek Group, Inc.) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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