In Re County of Erie ( 2008 )

No. 07-5702-op
In re County of Erie
1 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
2 FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT
3 August Term 2007
4
5 Docket No. 07-5702-op
6 (Submitted: May 13, 2008 Decided: October 14, 2008)
7 __________________________________________________________
8 IN RE THE COUNTY OF ERIE
9 ADAM PRITCHARD, EDWARD, ROBINSON, AND JULENNE
10 TUCKER, BOTH INDIVIDUALLY, AND ON BEHALF OF A
11 CLASS OF OTHERS SIMILARLY SITUATED,
12 Plaintiffs-Respondents,
13 v.
14 THE COUNTY OF ERIE, PATRICK GALLIVAN, BOTH
15 INDIVIDUALLY AND IN HIS OFFICIAL CAPACITY
16 AS SHERIFF OF THE COUNTY OF ERIE, TIMOTHY
17 HOWARD, BOTH INDIVIDUALLY AND AS UNDERSHERIFF
18 OF THE COUNTY OF ERIE, DONALD LIVINGSTON, BOTH
19 INDIVIDUALLY AND AS ACTING SUPERINTENDENT OF
20 THE ERIE COUNTY CORRECTIONAL FACILITY, AND
21 ROBERT HUGGINS, BOTH INDIVIDUALLY AND AS
22 DEPUTY SUPERINTENDENT OF THE ERIE COUNTY
23 CORRECTIONAL FACILITY,
24
25 Defendants-Petitioners,
26 H. McCARTHY GIPSON, BOTH INDIVIDUALLY AND AS
27 SUPERINTENDENT OF THE ERIE COUNTY HOLDING CENTER,
28 Defendant.
29 __________________________________________________________
30 Before: FEINBERG, MINER, and B.D. PARKER, Circuit Judges.
31 Petition for Writ of Mandamus directing the District Court
32 to vacate its order requiring the production of ten e-mail
33 communications allegedly protected by the attorney-client
34 privilege, the District Court having determined that the
35 petitioners waived the privilege by placing in issue the
36 information contained in the disputed e-mails.
1
1 Petition granted.
2 James P. Domagalski, Frank T.
3 Gaglione, Hiscock & Barclay, LLP,
4 Buffalo, NY, for Defendants-
5 Petitioners.
6 Elmer Robert Keach, III, Law
7 Offices of Elmer Robert Keach, III,
8 P.C. Amsterdam, NY, for
9 Plaintiffs-Respondents.
10 Charles J. LaDuca, Cuneo, Gilbert &
11 LaDuca, LLP, Washington DC, for
12 Plaintiffs-Respondents.
13 MINER, Circuit Judge:
14 I.
15 This Petition calls upon us once again to resolve an
16 important question of attorney-client privilege raised in the
17 course of discovery in the ongoing litigation challenging the
18 strip search practices at the Erie County Jail. In requiring the
19 production of ten e-mails that passed between attorney and client
20 in this litigation, the District Court applied the rule that the
21 attorney-client privilege is deemed waived when the advice of
22 counsel is placed in issue. We recognize that there has been
23 some uncertainty surrounding the rule and consider the need for
24 clarification of sufficient importance to invoke the remedy of
25 mandamus.
26 II.
27 The underlying action was commenced in July 2004 by
28 Plaintiffs-Respondents Adam Pritchard, Edward Robinson, and
29 Julenne Tucker on behalf of themselves and a class of others
30 similarly situated as plaintiffs (here the "Respondents"),
2
1 asserting that the written policy of the Erie County Sheriff's
2 Office requiring an invasive strip search of all detainees
3 entering the Erie County Holding Center or Erie County
4 Correctional Facility was violative of the Fourth Amendment. See
5 In re County of Erie, 473 F.3d 413, 415–16 (2d Cir. 2007) (“Erie
6 I”). Named as defendants in the complaint in the underlying
7 action, brought pursuant to the provisions of 42 U.S.C. § 1983,
8 are Defendants-Petitioners County of Erie, Erie County Sheriff
9 Gallivan, Undersheriff Howard, Acting Superintendent Livingston
10 of the Erie County Correctional Facility, and Deputy
11 Superintendent Huggins of the Erie County Holding Center (here
12 the “Petitioners"), and defendant Superintendent Gipson of the
13 Erie County Holding Center. Id. at 416.
14 During the course of discovery, the Magistrate Judge to whom
15 the matter was assigned ordered the production of ten specific e-
16 mail communications claimed to be subject to the attorney-client
17 privilege and withheld by Petitioners. See id. These documents
18 consisted of correspondence between the offices of the Erie
19 County Attorney and the Erie County Sheriff. See id. With
20 respect to content, suffice it to say, as we did in our preceding
21 opinion involving these same e-mails, that the County Attorney’s
22 Office "reviewed the law concerning strip searches of detainees,
23 assessed the County’s current search policy, recommended
24 alternative policies, and monitored the implementation of these
25 policy changes." Id. The Magistrate Judge opined that the
26 communications did not involve legal advice or analysis but dealt
3
1 only with administration and policy, including the drafting of
2 regulations to change existing policy. See id. The District
3 Judge overruled objections to the Magistrate Judge’s order after
4 an independent review of the e-mails and directed that the
5 documents be produced. Respondents thereafter filed in this
6 Court a Petition for a Writ of Mandamus directing the District
7 Court to vacate its order. See id.8 III.
9 After reviewing the submissions of the parties in regard to
10 the Petition, we first determined that the writ was an
11 appropriate device to review the discovery order in this case
12 because the Petitioner presented an important issue of first
13 impression: whether communications passing between a government
14 attorney without policy-making authority and a public official
15 are protected by the attorney-client privilege when the
16 communications evaluate the policies’ legality and propose
17 alternatives. Id. at 417. We also noted that the privilege
18 would be lost or undermined if review were to await final
19 judgment. Id. An analysis of the attorney-client privilege in
20 the government context and its application to the factual
21 background of this case led us to conclude
22 that each of the ten disputed e-mails was sent for the
23 predominant purpose of soliciting or rendering legal
24 advice. They convey to the public officials
25 responsible for formulating, implementing and
26 monitoring Erie County’s corrections policies, a
27 lawyer’s assessment of Fourth Amendment requirements,
28 and provide guidance in crafting and implementing
29 alternative policies for compliance. This advice ——
30 particularly when viewed in the context in which it was
31 solicited and rendered —— does not constitute general
4
1 policy or political advice unprotected by the
2 privilege.
3 Id. at 422—23 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted).
4 We therefore granted the writ and directed the District Court to
5 enter an order preserving the confidentiality of the e-mails in
6 question. Our order granting the writ allowed the District Court
7 on remand "to determine whether the distribution of some of the
8 disputed e-mail communications to others within the Erie County
9 Sheriff’s Department constituted a waiver of the attorney-client
10 privilege." Id. at 423.
11 IV.
12 On remand, the District Court ordered briefing and oral
13 argument to determine, in accordance with our remand order,
14 whether there was a waiver of the attorney-client privilege with
15 respect to any of the e-mail communications that passed between
16 the office of the Erie County Attorney and the Sheriff’s
17 Department. Following oral argument, the court issued a written
18 opinion analyzing the circumstances under which disclosure of
19 confidential communications might constitute a waiver of the
20 attorney-client privilege. Pritchard v. County of Erie, No. 04-
21 CV-00534C, 2007 WL 1703832 (W.D.N.Y. June 12, 2007). Turning to
22 the facts of this case, the District Court concluded
23 that defendants have satisfied their burden of
24 demonstrating with sufficient "factual specificity," .
25 . . that dissemination of any of the ten e-mail
26 communications ruled upon by the Second Circuit was
27 limited to Sheriff’s Department employees who needed to
28 know the content of the communication in order to
29 effectively perform their jobs or to make informed
30 policy decisions concerning the authorization of strip
31 searches of inmates or detainees . . . . In the
5
1 absence of any factual showing by plaintiffs to suggest
2 a contrary result, the court finds there has been no
3 waiver of the attorney-client privilege pertaining to
4 these particular ten e-mail communications.
5 Id. at *6.
6 On a motion for reconsideration, however, the District Court
7 reversed fields and determined that the attorney-client privilege
8 had been waived as to the ten e-mails. Pritchard v. County of
9 Erie, No. 04-CV-00534C, 2007 WL 3232096 (W.D.N.Y. Oct. 31, 2007).
10 In granting the motion, the court found "that the defendants
11 [had] waived the attorney-client privilege with respect to the
12 disputed e-mails by placing the information in those
13 communications at issue in the litigation." Id. at *5.
14 Characterizing this forfeiture of the privilege as an "at issue,"
15 or "implied," waiver, the District Court noted our pronouncement
16 that "[i]t is well established doctrine that in certain
17 circumstances a party’s assertion of factual claims can, out of
18 considerations of fairness to the party’s adversary, result in
19 the involuntary forfeiture of privileges for matters pertinent to
20 the claims asserted." Id. at *2 (citing John Doe Co. v. United
21 States, 350 F.3d 299, 302 (2d Cir. 2003)).
22 In arriving at its conclusion, the District Court relied on
23 the test first put forth in Hearn v. Rhay, 68 F.R.D. 574 (E.D.
24 Wash. 1975). Hearn required a positive response to three
25 separate inquiries:
26 whether: (1) the assertion of the privilege was a
27 result of some affirmative act, such as filing suit or
28 pleading in response to a claim; (2) through the
29 affirmative act, the asserting party has put the
30 protected information at issue by making it relevant to
6
1 the case; and (3) the application of the privilege
2 would have denied the opposing party access to
3 information vital to the defense.
4 Pritchard, 2007 WL 3232096, at *2 (citing Hearn, 68 F.R.D. at
5 581).
6 In support of its finding that the test enunciated in Hearn
7 was met in this case, the District Court pointed to the
8 Petitioners’ response to Respondents’ claim in the underlying
9 action that invasive strip searches were undertaken without
10 regard to the nature of the crime or individualized suspicion and
11 therefore pursuant to an unlawful policy:
12 The prison officials respond that there was no such
13 policy in place, or that the policy that was in place
14 authorized searches of individual detainees in
15 accordance with constitutional requirements.
16 Defendants also claim qualified immunity from suit
17 based on “an objectively reasonable belief that their
18 actions were lawful and not in violation of any of
19 [Plaintiffs-Respondents’] clearly established
20 constitutional rights.”
21 Id. at *4.
22 In its analysis, the District Court adverted specifically to
23 the deposition testimony of Defendant-Petitioner Donald
24 Livingston, who held a supervisory position at the Erie County
25 Jail. Id. at *5. Responding to questions surrounding a
26 memorandum that he had prepared directing jail personnel to
27 discontinue routine strip searches of new inmates, Livingston
28 stated that there were ongoing discussions with the County
29 Attorney’s Office regarding changes in the law. Id. Further
30 testimony by Livingston regarding advice of counsel was
31 terminated by the objection of counsel for Petitioners.
7
1 Defendant Gipson, the jail employee who signed the
2 memorandum, testified at his deposition that the County
3 Attorney’s Office was involved in rewriting the strip search
4 policy. Id. The District Court stated that "this testimony
5 clearly indicates [Defendants-Petitioners’] reliance on
6 privileged communications to support the contention that the
7 strip search policy . . . was lawful." Pritchard, 2007 WL
8 3232096, at *5. Even at the pleading stage, according to the
9 District Court, "pleading conduct in conformity with the law, and
10 then asserting privilege to protect from disclosure facts that
11 might disprove this contention . . . has placed the advice
12 rendered by [Defendants-Petitioners’] counsel about the legality
13 of the strip search policy directly in issue in the case." Id.14 at *4.
15 V.
16 In Erie I, we reiterated our long-standing rule that the
17 potential invasion of a privilege appropriately calls forth a
18 writ of mandamus if a three-pronged test is met: "(A) the
19 petition raises an important issue of first impression; (B) the
20 privilege will be lost if review must await final judgment; and
21 (C) immediate resolution will avoid the development of discovery
22 practices or doctrine that undermine the privilege." 473 F.3d at23 416—17. While Respondents concede that the second and third
24 prongs have been satisfied, they strenuously argue that the first
25 has not. They contend that the "contours" of the at-issue (or
26 implied) waiver have been firmly established. We disagree and
8
1 see the need to clarify the scope of the waiver to modify the
2 very broad application of the rule that has found favor in some
3 quarters and is exemplified by the District Court’s opinion in
4 this case.
5 Although we have cited Hearn in the past in support of some
6 general propositions, we never have decided whether the entirety
7 of the test put forward in that case and relied upon by the
8 District Court was definitive. See In re Grand Jury Proceedings,
9 219 F.3d 175, 182 (2d Cir. 2000) (citing Hearn for the
10 proposition that "a party cannot partially disclose privileged
11 communications or affirmatively rely on privileged communications
12 to support its claim or defense and then shield the underlying
13 communications from scrutiny by the opposing party"); United
14 States v. Bilzerian, 926 F.2d 1285, 1292 (2d Cir. 1991) (citing
15 Hearn for the proposition that "the privilege may implicitly be
16 waived when defendant asserts a claim that in fairness requires
17 examination of protected communications”).
18 Courts in our Circuit and others have criticized Hearn and
19 have applied its tests unevenly. See, e.g., Rhone-Poulenc Rorer,
20 Inc. v. Home Indem. Co., 32 F.3d 851, 864 (3d Cir. 1994) (deeming
21 Hearn to be of "dubious validity" because, although it "dress[es]
22 up [its] analysis with a checklist of factors, [it] appear[s] to
23 rest on a conclusion that the information sought is relevant and
24 should in fairness be disclosed"); Pereira v. United Jersey Bank,
25 Nos. 94 Civ 1565 & 94 Civ 1844, 1997 WL 773716, at *3 (S.D.N.Y.
26 Dec. 11, 1997) ("Hearn is problematic insofar as there are very
9
1 few instances in which the Hearn factors, taken at face value, do
2 not apply and, therefore, a large majority of claims of privilege
3 would be subject to waiver."); Allen v. West Point-Pepperell,
4 Inc., 848 F. Supp. 423, 429 (S.D.N.Y. 1994) (noting that district
5 courts within this Circuit have reached conflicting decisions in
6 the application of Hearn, and rejecting reliance "upon a line of
7 cases in which courts have unhesitatingly applied a variation of
8 the Hearn balancing test"); Koppers Co., Inc. v. Aetna Cas. &
9 Sur. Co., 847 F. Supp. 360, 363 (W.D. Pa. 1994) (rejecting the
10 third Hearn factor for vagueness and overbreadth); Connell v.
11 Bernstein-Macaulay, Inc., 407 F. Supp. 420, 422 (S.D.N.Y. 1976)
12 ("The actual holding in [Hearn] is not in point because the party
13 there asserting the privilege had expressly relied upon the
14 advice of counsel as a defense to the plaintiff’s action.").
15 The test also has been subject to academic criticism. See,
16 e.g., Richard L. Marcus, The Perils of Privilege: Waiver and the
17 Litigator, 84 MICH . L. REV . 1605, 1628–29 (1986); Note,
18 Developments in the Law —— Privileged Communications, 98 HARV . L.
19 REV. 1450, 1641—42 (1985) ("[T]he faults in the Hearn approach
20 are (1) that it does not succeed in targeting a type of
21 unfairness that is distinguishable from the unavoidable
22 unfairness generated by every assertion of privilege, and (2)
23 that its application cannot be limited."). In view of the
24 foregoing, it seems to us that there is a need for clarification
25 of the scope of the at-issue waiver and the circumstances under
26 which it should be applied.
10
1 VI.
2 The attorney-client privilege is one of the “oldest
3 recognized privileges for confidential communications.” Swidler
4 & Berlin v. United States, 524 U.S. 399, 403 (1998). Its purpose
5 is to “encourage full and frank communication between attorneys
6 and their clients and thereby promote broader public interests in
7 the observance of law and the administration of justice.” Id. at
8 403 (internal quotation marks omitted). Therefore, rules which
9 result in the waiver of this privilege and thus possess the
10 potential to weaken attorney-client trust, should be formulated
11 with caution. Generally, "[c]ourts have found waiver by
12 implication when a client testifies concerning portions of the
13 attorney-client communication, . . . when a client places the
14 attorney-client relationship directly at issue, . . . and when a
15 client asserts reliance on an attorney’s advice as an element of
16 a claim or defense. . . ." Sedco Int’l S.A. v. Cory, 683 F.2d
17 1201, 1206 (8th Cir. 1982). The key to a finding of implied
18 waiver in the third instance is some showing by the party arguing
19 for a waiver that the opposing party relies on the privileged
20 communication as a claim or defense or as an element of a claim
21 or defense. The assertion of an "advice-of-counsel" defense has
22 been properly described as a "quintessential example" of an
23 implied waiver of the privilege. See In re Kidder Peabody Secs.
24 Litig., 168 F.R.D. 459, 470 (S.D.N.Y. 1996).
25 In Bilzerian, the defendant argued that he did not intend to
26 violate the securities laws that he was charged with violating
11
1 and contended that the testimony he sought to introduce regarding
2 his good faith efforts to comply with the laws did not implicate
3 any reliance on privileged communications. 926 F.2d at 1291. We
4 agreed with the District Court in that case that if Bilzerian
5 testified as to good faith, the door would be opened to cross-
6 examination that might require him to divulge otherwise
7 privileged communications with his attorney. Id. at 1294. We
8 opined that "[t]he trial court’s ruling left defendant free to
9 testify without getting into his state of mind, but correctly
10 held that if he asserted his good faith, the jury would be
11 entitled to know the basis of his understanding that his actions
12 were legal." Id.13 We noted that the District Court’s ruling in Bilzerian left
14 the defendant’s privileged communications intact if he merely
15 denied criminal intent but did not assert good faith or if he
16 argued good faith only through defense counsel and the
17 examination of witnesses. Id. at 1293. Accordingly, the
18 assertion of a good-faith defense involves an inquiry into state
19 of mind, which typically calls forth the possibility of implied
20 waiver of the attorney-client privilege.
21 Underlying any determination that a privilege should be
22 forfeited is the notion of unfairness. This notion implicates
23 only "the type of unfairness to the adversary that results in
24 litigation circumstances when a party uses an assertion of fact
25 to influence the decisionmaker while denying its adversary access
26 to privileged material potentially capable of rebutting the
12
1 assertion." John Doe Co., 350 F.3d at 306. And we have made it
2 clear that "[w]hether fairness requires disclosure has been
3 decided . . . on a case-by-case basis, and depends primarily on
4 the specific context in which the privilege is asserted." In re
5 Grand Jury, 219 F.3d at 183.
6 We agree with its critics that the Hearn test cuts too
7 broadly and therefore conclude that the District Court erred in
8 applying it here. According to Hearn, an assertion of privilege
9 by one who pleads a claim or affirmative defense "put[s] the
10 protected information at issue by making it relevant to the
11 case." Hearn, 68 F.R.D. at 581. But privileged information may
12 be in some sense relevant in any lawsuit. A mere indication of a
13 claim or defense certainly is insufficient to place legal advice
14 at issue. The Hearn test presumes that the information is
15 relevant and should be disclosed and would open a great number of
16 privileged communications to claims of at-issue waiver. Nowhere
17 in the Hearn test is found the essential element of reliance on
18 privileged advice in the assertion of the claim or defense in
19 order to effect a waiver.
20 We hold that a party must rely on privileged advice from his
21 counsel to make his claim or defense. We decline to specify or
22 speculate as to what degree of reliance is required because
23 Petitioners here do not rely upon the advice of counsel in the
24 assertion of their defense in this action. Although the District
25 Court held, inter alia, that the qualified immunity defense
26 asserted by Petitioners placed the privileged communications
13
1 between the County Attorney’s Office and the Sheriff’s personnel
2 at issue, this is not so. “Qualified immunity protects officials
3 from liability for civil damages as long as their conduct does
4 not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional
5 rights of which a reasonable person would have known." Gilles v.
6 Repicky, 511 F.3d 239, 243 (2d Cir. 2007) (internal quotation
7 marks omitted). The question of whether a right is "clearly
8 established" is determined by reference to the case law extant at
9 the time of the violation. See Moore v. Andreno, 505 F.3d 203,
10 215—16 (2d Cir. 2007). This is an objective, not a subjective,
11 test, and reliance upon advice of counsel therefore cannot be
12 used to support the defense of qualified immunity.
13 Petitioners do not claim a good faith or state of mind
14 defense. They maintain only that their actions were lawful or
15 that any rights violated were not clearly established. In view
16 of the litigation circumstances, any legal advice rendered by the
17 County Attorney’s Office is irrelevant to any defense so far
18 raised by Petitioners. Here, as in John Doe Co., there is no
19 unfairness to the Respondents, because they are "in no way worse
20 off" as a result of the disclosure that communications exist than
21 they would be if they were unaware of them. Doe, 350 F.3d at22 305. The party asserting the privilege in John Doe Co. had not,
23 as Respondents have not, "placed the matter at issue so as to
24 cause forfeiture of privilege by reason of unfairness." Id. at
25 306. Respondents have not been denied “access to information
26 vital to” their claims. Pritchard, 2007 WL 3232096, at *2
14
1 (citing Hearn, 68 F.R.D. at 581).
2 The deposition testimony identified by the District Court
3 does not serve to waive the privilege. The Assistant County
4 Attorney who was present at the deposition properly terminated
5 the inquiries when Livingston began to elaborate on the specifics
6 of the advice received by the Sheriff’s Office, and the principal
7 substance of the attorney-client communications was not revealed.
8 Moreover, the fact that the deponent was not before a
9 "decisionmaker or fact finder" when he made the statements
10 claimed by Respondents to have triggered the waiver means that
11 Respondents have not been placed in a disadvantaged position at
12 trial. See In re Sims, 534 F.3d 117, 132 (2d Cir. 2008).
13 Nothing in the record suggests that Petitioners have yet waived
14 the privilege by "an assertion of fact to influence the
15 decisionmaker." John Doe Co., 350 F.3d at 306.
16 VII.
17 The Petition for Mandamus is granted. The District Court’s
18 order to produce the ten e-mails is vacated, and the District
19 Court is directed to enter an order protecting the
20 confidentiality of those privileged communications. Respondents
21 shall have leave to reargue forfeiture of the privilege before
22 the District Court should the Petitioners rely upon an advice-of-
23 counsel or good-faith defense at trial.
15