Free Order on Motion for Miscellaneous Relief - District Court of Delaware - Delaware

Case 1:04-cv-00418-SLR Document 141 Filed 10/31/2005 Page 1 of 3
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF DELAWARE
SEAGATE TECHNOLOGY LLC, )
Plaintiff, )
v. ) Civ. No. 04-418-SLR
CORNICE, INC., )
Defendant. )
O R D E R
At Wilmington this 31st day of October, 2005, having
reviewed defendant’s request for in camera inspection pursuant to
the stipulated protective order, and the papers filed in
connection with said motion;
IT IS ORDERED that said motion (D.I. 124) is granted in part
and denied in part.
1. On the merits, the act of sending a copy of a
document to counsel does not, in and of itself, shield the
document from disclosure by virtue of the attorney—client
privilege. In order to invoke the protection of the attorney
client privilege, there must be some indicia on the face of the
document that legal advice was actually sought by the author.
2. There is no such indicia on the face of the emails
at issue. (D.I. 128, exs. 1-2) The emails were authored by

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business people about a routine business matter — the contents of
a slide presentation to a third party. The three sentences
plaintiff seeks to redact relate to a business executive’s
negative reaction to the royalty rates contained in the
presentation. Although copies of the emails were forwarded to
in—house counsel, there is no indication that counsel was
anything other than an observer of the conversation among
business people. There certainly is nothing so “inherently
legal" about royalty rates that transforms a business discussion
into a legal one protected by the privilege. Therefore, under
other circumstances, I would order the unredacted document
produced.
3. However, in this case, defendant apparently failed
to honor the provisions of the stipulated protective order
regarding the inadvertent disclosure of privileged documents.
(D.I. 128, ex. 3) Setting aside what ALJ Harris might have
decided in this regard, it appears that defendant, after
receiving notice of the inadvertent disclosure, neither returned
the document nor brought it to my attention promptly but,
instead, retained a copy and attempted to use it in a later
deposition. Under these circumstances, I decline to give
defendant the benefit of this document and, instead, will
preclude its use in this case.
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that plaintiff's motion for issuance
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0f a letter regetery (D.1. 131) is denied as untimely.
United Stages District Judge
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