WCA Holdings III, LLC v. Panasonic Avionics Corporation

District Court, S.D. New York·Decided October 19, 2024·No. 1:20-cv-07472·Unknown

Opinion

October 17, 2024 USDC SDNY DOCUMENT ELECTRONICALLY FILED VIA ECF DOC #: DATE FILED: 10/19/24 Honorable Gregory H. Woods Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Courthouse MEMORANDUM ENDORSED 500 Pearl St. New York, NY 10007-1312 Re: WCA Holdings III, LLC v. Panasonic Avionics Corporation Case No. 1:20-cv-07472-GHW – Meet and Confer Joint Letter Dear Judge Woods: We write pursuant to the Court’s Order dated October 10, 2024, directing the parties to meet and confer and submit a joint letter reflecting the conference once completed. See Dkt. No. 169. Plaintiff WCA Holdings III, LLC’s (“WCA”) continues to pursue the discovery motions described in its October 7 letters. The scope of that requested discovery has not changed. The parties met and conferred on October 14, 2024. The parties agreed on the call that they had met their discovery conference obligations, and confirmed the same in writing following the meeting. WCA’s Position. WCA filed two letters on October 7, 2024 seeking relief from the Court related to outstanding discovery. The first sought documents described by a representative of Panasonic Avionics Corporation (“PAC”), Mr. Richard Kennedy, in his deposition. First, Mr. Kennedy described certain parts that could have theoretically been installed on WCA’s aircraft and the location of prices for comparable parts. Ex. A (Excerpts of Richard Kennedy Deposition of 9-27- 24 at 306:2-7; 307:12-19) (describing list of “aspirational” Panasonic parts); id. (367:10-14, 18- 20, 367:21-368:3, 12-14, 16-23) (testifying that prices for comparable parts to the “aspirational” Panasonic parts could be found in a contract between Panasonic and Lufthansa Technik). Mr. Kennedy also testified that there were likely other iterations of a marketing document, introduced as Kennedy Exhibit 23 at his deposition. See id. at 374:22-375:10; 376:9-11; 377:12-21. Counsel for PAC has represented that PAC personnel have been unable to locate either the document showing prices for IDAIR components that Mr. Kennedy mentioned or iterations of Exhibit 23 from Mr. Kennedy’s deposition. PAC has stopped short of saying such documents did not exist; PAC has been unable to locate such documents in the three weeks since Mr. Kennedy’s deposition. WCA believes these documents may prove critical to its damages calculations and presentation at trial, and, therefore, unless and until PAC can confirm that the documents do not exist, WCA continues to seek an order compelling production. The second letter WCA filed on October 7, 2024 dealt with PAC’s privilege log. WCA continues to believe that PAC is improperly or incorrectly asserting privilege as to (i) email attachments, and (ii) documents between non-lawyers identified vaguely as potentially seeking future legal advice. WCA has directed PAC to its letter, which identifies each specific log entry WCA identified as insufficient. WCA is unable to provide further analysis or identification of documents that it has not seen. WCA’s position is based on (1) the documents it has seen and (2) the statements made by counsel for PAC. As to the documents WCA has reviewed, for example, a document was used as an exhibit at Mr. Kennedy’s deposition, which PAC clawed back in the middle of the proceedings. Again, counsel for WCA has fully reviewed that document; there is no basis for privilege because (i) no legal advice was sought or received, and (ii) no lawyer was included on the email. Despite the October 14 discovery conference, PAC continues to disagree. As to the statements from counsel for PAC, they have represented both by phone and in writing that all remaining documents attached to an email sent to an attorney are privileged. Not so. PAC has provided no case law to support a situation in which a non-lawyer sends non- privileged documents to an attorney and it per se cloaks such attachments in privilege, even where the document is otherwise non-privileged and responsive to WCA’s document requests.1 PAC’s counsel also confirmed that these attachments have not otherwise been produced to WCA from some other source. Counsel for PAC has also stated that a non-attorney who works with lawyers in the contract department establishes privilege in an email communication. Again, this is not a universally applicable rule. WCA agrees that in some cases, such as those in which non-attorneys relay advice provided by counsel, privilege may apply narrowly to the content of that relayed advice. It is not the case, however, that copying a non-attorney who sometimes works with lawyers in an email communication makes the entire communication subject to the attorney-client privilege. Again, the parties were unable to resolve this issue in the October 14 discovery conference. PAC’s Position WCA’s Privilege Challenges. During the parties’ 24-minute discovery conference, on October 15, 2024, WCA refused to identify the specific logged documents with which it takes issues. Instead, WCA challenged the categories of privileged documents and continued to claim that PAC’s privilege assertions are deficient. As previously noted, PAC has in good faith reviewed the challenged documents on more than one occasion, recently released documents (despite a legitimate privilege claim) that could be released from the log, and provided WCA with a third supplemental and revised log on October 4, 2024 (the “10/4 Log”). See Dkt. No. 167 at 3 (citing Ex. M). The 10/4 Log contained updated and revised privilege descriptions and PAC produced 1 Were that to be the law, which it is not, one could see many employees abusing such a rule to prevent the disclosure of key documents in a lawsuit. 2 the released documents to WCA on the same day. See id. WCA’s most recent submission here, makes clear that while it agrees with the privilege grounds asserted by PAC, WCA simply does not trust that PAC has properly withheld its documents. That is not a basis for in camera review and WCA’s request should be denied. As explained in the prior joint submission (Dkt. No. 167), WCA admits that email attachments of confidential drafts from in-house attorneys provided in connection with legal advice are privileged. See, e.g., Log Nos. 82–89, 92–93, 118, 120, 130–31, 135–36, 181–84, 185- A–C, and 186-A–D. For the first time during the meet and confer, WCA asked whether the foregoing withheld email attachments had been produced. PAC offered to check but that was not good enough. PAC can confirm that the following email attachments have previously been produced to WCA: Log Nos. 82–89, 181–84, 185-A–C, and 186-A–D. See, e.g., PAC0036398– PAC0036407, PAC0023054–PAC0023061, PAC0023070–PAC0023077. Regardless, each of the challenged email attachments is properly withheld as privileged. See Dkt. No. 167 (citing In re County of Erie, 473 F.3d 413 (2d Cir. 2007); Carter v. Cornell Univ., 173 F.R.D. 92, 95 (S.D.N.Y. 1997) and In re Grand Jury Subpoena Dated July 6, 2005, 510 F.3d 180, 183–84 (2d Cir. 2007)). For example, Log Nos. 130–36 include an attorney draft and additional privileged emails with in- house counsel at a time when PAC reasonably anticipated litigation. Requiring PAC to provide further detail would render the privilege log meaningless. As for communications between non-attorneys, WCA’s principal complaint relates to Log No. 23,2 which is an email with PAC’s associate general counsel and his staff within the legal contracts department, that was clawed back on June 13, 2024. In addition, WCA challenges Log No. 202, which is another email with PAC’s legal contracts department that was clawed back during the deposition of one of PAC’s Rule 30(b)(6) witnesses. As discussed (Dkt. No. 167 at 5), privilege attaches to communications with non-attorneys working at the direction of counsel (e.g., paralegals, secretaries, clerks) such as staff in PAC’s Contracts Department, many of whom are attorneys. See Dkt. No.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

WCA Holdings III, LLC v. Panasonic Avionics Corporation, (S.D.N.Y. 2024).

WCA Holdings III, LLC v. Panasonic Avionics Corporation (WCA Holdings III, LLC v. Panasonic Avionics Corporation) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

Related

In Re Grand Jury Subpoena Dated July 6, 2005
510 F.3d 180 (Second Circuit, 2007)
Carter v. Cornell University
173 F.R.D. 92 (S.D. New York, 1997)