Sylgab Steel & Wire Corp. v. Imoco-Gateway Corp.

62 F.R.D. 454, 18 Fed. R. Serv. 2d 812, 182 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 187, 1974 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9549
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. Illinois
DecidedMarch 13, 1974
DocketNo. 71 C 1848
StatusPublished
Cited by31 cases

This text of 62 F.R.D. 454 (Sylgab Steel & Wire Corp. v. Imoco-Gateway Corp.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Sylgab Steel & Wire Corp. v. Imoco-Gateway Corp., 62 F.R.D. 454, 18 Fed. R. Serv. 2d 812, 182 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 187, 1974 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9549 (N.D. Ill. 1974).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

BAUER, District Judge.

This cause comes on the plaintiff’s motion for an order compelling the defendant, Imoco-Gateway Corporation, to produce documents and answer deposition questions pursuant to Rule 37(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

The jurisdiction of this Court is allegedly predicated upon the patent laws of the United States of America and 28 U. S.C. § 1338(a). The plaintiff in this action seeks to redress the alleged infringement by defendants of plaintiff’s patent covering reinforcing rod supports for concrete slabs.

The plaintiff, in the instant motion, seeks to compel defendant Imoco-Gate-way Corporation:

1. to produce for inspection twenty-five documents which have heretofore been withheld from production due to either an attorney-client privilege, an attorney work product immunity, or both; and
2. to answer questions relating to the subject matter and substance of the twenty-five documents.

The plaintiff contends that any attorney-client privilege or work product immunity relative to the requested documents and to the information sought by the stated questions has been waived either intentionally or by implication.

The defendant Imoco-Gateway Corporation, in opposition to the instant motion contends that the manner in which the motion was presented is in blatant disregard of the applicable procedural rules and that the motion is not well founded as a matter of law.

[456]*456I. THE DOCUMENTS IN QUESTION ARE PRIVILEGED AND PROTECTED FROM DISCOVERY.

After a careful, in camera, inspection of the documents in question, it is the opinion of this Court that these documents are protected from discovery by both the attorney-client and attorney work product privilege.

For convenience, the twenty-five letters in question can be classified in the following eight groups, each group involving at least one opinion of the defendant Imoco-Gateway Corporation’s attorney, Mr. Thomas Dorn:

1. Documents 1-5: Dorn’s opinion letter of July 6, 1965 relative to the scope of the patent act, including plaintiff’s corresponding foreign patents and the patent act’s applicability to Gateway Erectors Inc.’s (“Gateway”) proposed products, together with four background letters for that opinion;
2. Documents 6-8: Dorn’s opinion letter of June 28, 1966 relative to plaintiff’s pending patent application and scope of the patent act, together with two background letters ;
3. Document 9: Dorn’s opinion letter of January 6, 1967 relative to the scope and validity of the Sylgab patent, including its allegedly “inapplicable” claims;
4. Documents 10-12: Dorn’s opinion letter of January 17, 1967 relative to the scope and validity of the Sylgab patent, including its allegedly “inapplicable” claims and its “inoperative” disclosure, together with two background letters;
5. Documents 13-17: Dorn’s opinion letter of January 23, 1967 relative to the scope and validity of the Sylgab patent, together with one background letter and three follow-up letters;
6. Documents 18-19: Dorn’s opinion letter of July 8, 1970 relative to the scope and validity of the Syl-gab patent, including its alleged unenforceability due to laches, together with one background letter;
7. Documents 20-23: Dorn’s opinion letter of July 24, 1970 relative to the scope and invalidity of the Sylgab patent, including alleged failure to set forth the “best mode” together with three background letters; and
8. Documents 24-25: Dorn’s opinion letter of August 17, 1970 relative to the scope and invalidity of the Sylgab patent, together with one follow-up letter.

The confidentiality of the documents in question is apparent from the face of such documents. All recipients of the documents in question were acting in their capacity as either attorney for the defendant or employees of the defendant who had primary responsibility for dealing with the defendant’s patent infringement problems. It is well settled that the dissemination of a communication between a corporation’s lawyer and an employee of that corporation to those employees directly concerned with such matters does not waive the attorney-client privilege. Harper and Row Publishers, Inc. v. Decker, 423 F.2d 487 (7th Cir. 1970) ; aff’d, 400 U.S. 348, 91 S.Ct. 479, 27 L.Ed.2d 433 (1971); Rockwell Mfg. Co. v. Chicago Pneumatic Tool Co., 57 F.R.D. 111 (N.D.Ill.1972); Panduit Corporation v. Burndy Corporation et al„ 172 U.S.P.Q. 46 (E.D.Ill., Nov. 1, 1971, #70 C 2210).

The documents in question were prepared by Mr. Dorn, the defendant’s attorney, or agents of Mr. Dorn who were doing background research concerning the patent in dispute or employees of the defendant who are concerned with such matters.

From a careful examination of the instant documents and the pieadings in [457]*457this ease it is evident that some of the documents in question:

1. were prepared by one who stood in the nature of a client or who acted as an attorney in confidential matters concerning a client or who acted as an agent for such an attorney ;
2. were written to or by a member of the Bar of this Court, acting as a lawyer in connection with the communication;
3. related to facts of which the attorney was informed
a. by the client.
b. without the presence of strangers,
c. for the purpose of assisting in some legal proceedings, and
d. not for the purpose of committing a crime or tort; and
4. the privilege was
a. claimed, and
b. not waived by the client on the face of the documents.

Thus, these documents meet all the requirements necessary to be protected from discovery by the attorney-client privilege as enunciated in United States v. United Shoe Machinery Corporation, 89 F.Supp. 357 (D.Mass.1950) and Panduit Corporation v. Burndy Corporation et al., supra.

It is also equally clear that the other documents in question which are not protected under the attorney-client privilege, are protected' under the attorney work product privilege. See Rule 26(b)(3) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure; Hickman v. Taylor, 329 U.S. 495, 67 S.Ct. 385, 91 L.Ed. 451 (1947). In Hickman, the United States Supreme Court held that the work product doctrine protects the impressions, observations and opinions of a lawyer made “with an eye toward litigation”.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
62 F.R.D. 454, 18 Fed. R. Serv. 2d 812, 182 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 187, 1974 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9549, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/sylgab-steel-wire-corp-v-imoco-gateway-corp-ilnd-1974.