Republic Gear Company v. Borg-Warner Corporation

• Citation: 381 F.2d 551
• Decision Date: 30 June 1967
• Docket Number: No. 363,Docket 30959.,363
• Parties: REPUBLIC GEAR COMPANY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. BORG-WARNER CORPORATION, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (2nd Circuit)

381 F.2d 551 (1967)

REPUBLIC GEAR COMPANY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. BORG-WARNER CORPORATION, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 363, Docket 30959.

United States Court of Appeals Second Circuit.

Argued March 7, 1967.

Decided June 30, 1967.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Sidney Bender, Leventritt, Bush, Lewittes & Bender, New York City, for plaintiff-appellant.

James E. S. Baker, Sidley, Austin, Burgess & Smith, Chicago, Ill., for defendant-appellee.

Nathan Shapiro, Alan Shapiro, New York City, for non-party witness.

Before LUMBARD, Chief Judge, and WATERMAN and SMITH, Circuit Judges.

WATERMAN, Circuit Judge:

Republic Gear Company (Republic) brought a diversity action against Borg-Warner Corporation (Borg-Warner) in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in which Republic complains that Borg-Warner tortiously interfered with the contractual relations Republic had with two Brazilian corporations, Maquinas York S/A and Industrial Automobilistica Borton S/A (Borton).

Soon after commencing this action in Illinois Republic filed a notice with the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York to take the deposition for use in the Illinois proceeding of a New York City attorney, one Frank E. Nattier, Jr., as a non-party witness. Nattier was subpoenaed to bring with him to the deposition hearing any documents in his possession that might be relevant to the subject matter involved in Republic's Illinois action. During the progress of the taking of his deposition Nattier refused to produce certain documents claimed by him to be within the attorney-client privilege and hence excludable under Fed.R.Civ.P. 26(b) from depositional examination. Nattier asserted the privilege on behalf of his clients Maquinas York and Borton, which he had professionally represented in 1959 when they terminated their contractual relations with Republic and began relations with Borg-Warner.

Twenty-eight months later Republic moved pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 37(a) in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York for an order compelling Nattier to comply with the subpoena's direction to produce the documents. Republic claimed that the desired documents, consisting of correspondence between Nattier in New York and agents of the Brazilian companies and Republic, would reveal that Maquinas York and Borton had ceased relations with Republic because of inducements by Borg-Warner rather than, as had been stated to be the reason, because Republic had failed to supply necessary technical data required to be supplied by their contracts. Although Republic earlier had commenced actions against Maquinas York and Borton in the Southern District of New York, which actions were dismissed below for lack of jurisdiction over the defendants and which are now pending on appeal before this court, Maquinas York and Borton are not parties to the present Illinois litigation, nor, for all that appears in the record, have they expressly requested Nattier to assert claims of attorney-client privilege in their behalf in the present litigation. However, in Republic's prior actions against the Brazilian companies these very documents sought to be here produced were previously determined to be within the attorney-client or the "work-product" privileges by a Special Master appointed in those prior actions to supervise deposition proceedings and to rule on matters of privilege. In the present case the witness delivered the documents to the Chief Judge of the court below, and after a perusal of them Chief Judge Sugarman determined, as had the Special Master in the other prior litigation, that they were protected from adversary disclosure in the suit Republic had commenced against Borg-Warner either as Nattier's "work-product" or by the attorney-client privilege arising out of the professional relationship between Nattier and his clients York and Borton. Republic's motion was denied.

Appellant, maintaining that this order is a final decision of the district court below, has invoked our appellate jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291. Borg-Warner has moved to dismiss the appeal on the ground that the order below is not a final decision and therefore not appealable. We deny the motion to dismiss and, upon review of the issue and an examination of the documents, affirm the order below.

In approaching a resolution of the motion to dismiss the appeal two factors must be kept in mind: the order was issued in a jurisdiction other than that in which the main case is pending, and the order denied the motion to compel disclosure.

Orders dealing with discovery have been held interlocutory and therefore unappealable, when issued in the same jurisdiction as that of the main proceeding, e. g., Horvath v. Letay, 343 F.2d 463 (2 Cir. 1965); Cimijotti v. Paulsen, 323 F.2d 716 (8 Cir. 1963); Hoffa v. United States, 309 F.2d 680 (5 Cir.), cert. denied, 371 U.S. 878, 83 S.Ct. 147, 9 L.Ed.2d 115 (1962), or when, though issued in outside jurisdictions, they compelled disclosures, see, for example, Cobbledick v. United States, 309 U.S. 323, 60 S.Ct. 540, 84 L.Ed. 783 (1940); National Nut Co. of California v. Kelling Nut Co., 134 F.2d 532 (7 Cir. 1943); Korman v. Shull, 310 F.2d 373 (6 Cir. 1962); but also see Covey Oil Co. v. Continental Oil Co., 340 F.2d 993 (10 Cir.), cert. denied, 380 U.S. 964, 85 S.Ct. 1110, 14 L.Ed.2d 155 (1965). In the latter situation where disclosure is ordered and the order is not complied with, appellate review in subsequent contempt proceedings, however risky, see Horvath v. Letay, supra, 343 F.2d at 464; Covey Oil Co. v. Continental Oil Co., supra, 340 F.2d at 996-997, is available to one ordered to disclose who refuses to do so. See Cobbledick v. United States, 309 U.S. at 327, 60 S.Ct. at 542. In the former situation "there is no jurisdictional purpose to be served," Horvath v. Letay, supra 343 F.2d at 464, by granting an immediate appeal of an order denying disclosure, for upon appellate review of the merits of the case any reversal of a lower court order issued in the discovery proceeding is enforceable after the full appellate review. However, where, as here, an order denying discovery is issued in a jurisdiction beyond that of the main proceeding, the party seeking discovery would have no effective remedy; even if the appellate court in the jurisdiction in which discovery is sought awaited a final decision in the main proceeding before acting at all it would be necessary to return to the ancillary appellate court to argue the discovery issue. And if, upon appeal, the party were successful in reversing the lower court's order and thus obtained discovery, he would be required to go back to the court where the main case had already been tried, and there, with the discovered evidence now admissible on the merits, move to retry the case. The impracticality of this cumbersome procedure compels us to grant immediate appellate review of an order which, in another context, we might properly hold to have been an interlocutory order. See Horizon's Titanium Corp. v. Norton Co., 290 F.2d 421 (1 Cir. 1961); Carter Products, Inc. v. Eversharp, Inc., 360 F.2d 868 (7 Cir. 1966); 4 Moore's Federal Practice, ¶ 26.37 1.1-2, pp. 1712-19 (1966 ed). We do not share appellee's fear that by permitting an appeal here we are opening opportunities to litigants to harass their adversaries in situations where by skillful forum shopping a party may pursue discovery in jurisdiction after jurisdiction and, by taking appeal after appeal, delay ultimate adjudication for an unconscionable period. Our decision applies only when a witness is beyond the jurisdictional reach of the court in which the main proceeding is pending; such a witness is unlikely to be available in a sufficient number of such outside jurisdictions so as to permit shopping for a forum in which to serve a subpoena upon him.¹

Turning to the merits of this appeal, Republic urges that Nattier is not entitled to invoke the attorney-client privilege unless requested to do so by the clients whose confidential communications are sought to be protected, and either that the "work product" shelter is presently unavailable because the documents concerned were not prepared for this litigation, or there is "good cause" here to fashion an exception. Republic argues — and we shall assume for purposes of discussion that its argument is sound — that federal law governs the resolution of these questions, rather than the law of New York where the communications were made, the professional acts were performed, and where discovery is sought, or the law of Illinois, where the main diversity proceeding is pending.²

Republic, relying upon a pronouncement in a federal non-diversity case, supports its objection to Nattier's assertion of the attorney-client privilege by quoting from the decision in United States v. United Shoe Machinery Corp., 89 F.Supp. 357, 358-359 (D.Mass.1950) to the effect that "the privilege applies only if * * * (4) the privilege has been (a) claimed and (b) not waived by the client." Appellant would conclude from this that an attorney may not claim the privilege where, as here, the client is not present. Such a conclusion obviously misconceives the federal rule. Language as that quoted above merely emphasizes that, as at common law, the "privilege is the client's, not the attorney's." 8 Wigmore, Evidence, § 2321, p. 629 (McNaughton rev. ed. 1961), in the sense that an attorney can neither invoke the privilege for his own benefit when his client desires to waive it nor waive the privilege without his client's consent to the waiver. Not only may an attorney invoke the privilege in his client's behalf when the client is not a party to the proceeding in which disclosure is sought, 8 Wigmore, op. cit. supra, § 2321, p. 629; McCormick, Evidence, § 96, pp. 194-196 (1954); Morgan, Basic Problems of Evidence, § 10 et seq., 115-16 (1962); Uniform Rules of Evidence,...