Serrano v. Chesapeake Appalachia, LLC

298 F.R.D. 271, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 28469, 2014 WL 896634
CourtDistrict Court, W.D. Pennsylvania
DecidedMarch 6, 2014
DocketNo. 2:12cv1678
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 298 F.R.D. 271 (Serrano v. Chesapeake Appalachia, LLC) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, W.D. Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Serrano v. Chesapeake Appalachia, LLC, 298 F.R.D. 271, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 28469, 2014 WL 896634 (W.D. Pa. 2014).

Opinion

OPINION

DAVID STEWART CERCONE, District Judge.

Plaintiff commenced this action in the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County seeking redress for the death of Bret P. Cooney (“decedent”), who suffered injuries from an accident in the workplace and subsequently died from those injuries. Defendants removed the action on the basis of diversity jurisdiction. Presently before the court is plaintiff’s motion to enforce a subpoena directed to non-party Patterson-UTI (“Patterson”). For the reasons set forth below, the motion will denied and a protective order will be entered upholding Patterson’s invocation of the work product and attorney-client privileges. The protective order will be entered without prejudice to plaintiff seeking relief after further discovery based on a specific and particularized showing that a particular document or communication is beyond or outside the scope of the principles and rulings set forth in this opinion.

The decedent was an employee of Patterson. On January 14, 2011, decedent was a member of a drilling team working on site at an oil and natural gas rig. During the course of the operations decedent was struck in the head by a hose and suffered severe injury (“the event”). Decedent died on January 20, 2011.

Patterson contacted its outside counsel, Baker Hostetler LLP, upon learning of the event. Patterson engaged counsel in an effort to obtain legal advice. Attorney Glen Shu thereafter conducted interviews with eyewitnesses and others who had knowledge of or relating to the event. He received correspondence from Patterson’s employees. Attorney Shu reduced all of the gathered information into a written “investigation report.” The report contains Attorney Shu’s “interview summaries” of the eyewitnesses as well as his accounts and/or summaries of communications received from Patterson’s non-lawyer employees. It was prepared to provide Patterson with legal assistance.

Patterson thereafter engaged in communications about the event with its insurance (a) carrier, Zurich; (b) administrator, Liberty Mutual; and (c) broker, Willis. These communications involved claim assessment and/or strategy.

Defendant Chesapeake made a tender for indemnity to Patterson. Patterson accepted the tender subject to a reservation of rights. Thereafter, Patterson disclosed communications and information about the event to Chesapeake and defendant “Express Casings.” These communications occurred for the purpose of defending against any potential liability from plaintiffs claims.

Plaintiff commenced discovery while the action was in state court. After motions to compel and interaction with Judge Wettick, Patterson complied with various aspects of plaintiff’s discovery demands and produced a [276]*276privilege log. After revisions, Patterson withheld 107 documents as non-discoverable based on the attorney-client or work product privilege. It produced a privilege log identifying the date, author, recipient(s), subject of the communication and the privilege(s) invoked.

Plaintiff served a subpoena on Patterson after the action was removed. Patterson elected to stand on the asserted privileges and the privilege log. The instant motion to enforce followed.

Plaintiff challenges three different categories of the withheld information: the initial investigation report, the communications between Patterson and its carrier/administrator/broker, and the communications and exchange of information between Patterson, Chesapeake and Express Casings. Patterson maintains that all documents and communications withheld are privileged.

More specifically, plaintiff maintains that the initial investigation report was intended to serve as a repository for the statements of eyewitnesses, all of which Patterson filtered through Attorney Shu. The report necessarily must contain raw factual information concerning the event and is the only available source of contemporaneous information about it. Patterson is not a party to this litigation and can never be a party because it is immune from suit under the Pennsylvania Workers’ Compensation Act, 77 P.S. § 481(b). A majority of courts have held that non-parties cannot invoke the work-produet privilege embodied in Rule 26(b)(3). In addition, it is clear that non-lawyer employees of Patterson sent correspondence to Attorney Shu which must have contained accounts of the event. Such information has to contain raw factual information. Plaintiff thus asserts that the sheltering of such information indicates that the use of Attorney Shu was part of a designed plan to obtain evidence and preclude plaintiff from gaining access to it.

Patterson invokes both privileges as to the report. It argues that Attorney Shu conducted the investigation and wrote the report in his capacity as counsel. The report was based on information he learned from Patterson’s employees and its purpose was to provide legal assistance and counsel regarding the potential legal repercussions from the event. Thus, from Patterson’s perspective the report is protected under the attorney-client privilege.

Patterson further asserts that the report is protected under the work product doctrine. Patterson immediately anticipated litigation upon receiving news of the event. Attorney Shu prepared the report in his capacity as counsel and for the purpose of rendering legal advice. Patterson has an interest in this litigation that is aligned with defendant Chesapeake due to the acceptance of Chesapeake’s tender of indemnity. Federal district courts in the Middle and Eastern Districts of Pennsylvania have extended work product protection to non-parties under analogous circumstances.

Furthermore, Patterson asserts that the report does not contain any written statements signed or adopted by Patterson employees and it does not possess any such statements. Nor does the report contain any transcripts or substantially verbatim recitals of witness interviews. And although the report does contain Attorney Shu’s summaries of his interviews of Patterson employees, it is permeated with his thought process, mental impressions and legal theories to a degree that protects the entirety of the report. Thus, Patterson contends that the entire report is work product and protected from disclosure under the circumstances.

The report and the communications utilized by Attorney Shu in formulating it are protected by the work product doctrine. The work-product doctrine is codified in Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b), which provides that “a party may not discover documents and tangible things that are prepared in anticipation of litigation or for trial by or for another party or its representative” unless otherwise discoverable and the party shows substantial need for the material and the inability to obtain its substantial equivalent without undue hardship. Fed. R. Civ. Proc. 26(b)(3). In the seminal case of Hickman v. Taylor, 329 U.S. 495, 67 S.Ct. 385, 91 L.Ed. 451 (1947), the Supreme Court first recognized the doctrine pursuant to the principle [277]*277that permitting attorneys to prepare their eases without fear that their work product would be used against their clients advances the adversarial system. Id. at 510-11, 67 S.Ct. 385.

In United States v. Nobles, 422 U.S. 225, 238, 95 S.Ct.

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298 F.R.D. 271, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 28469, 2014 WL 896634, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/serrano-v-chesapeake-appalachia-llc-pawd-2014.