When Are Privileged Communications Placed "At Issue"?

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court dealt with the "at issue" waiver of attorney-client privilege in addressing a host of related issues

This case comes to us after a judgment entered dismissing the plaintiffs' claims, with prejudice, as a sanction for failing to comply with a discovery order requiring them to produce communications they had withheld from discovery on the ground that the communications were subject to the attorney-client privilege.

Holding

We conclude that the plaintiffs were entitled to invite dismissal of their claims as a sanction in order to obtain appellate review of the discovery order, and that the single justice's interlocutory review of the discovery order did not foreclose this appeal. We also conclude that, although the plaintiffs did not put their privileged communications "at issue" by bringing their claims against the defendant, they did put the privilege "at issue" by relying on the discovery rule to toll the statute of limitations. However, this does not result in a blanket waiver of the privilege, and we therefore vacate the judgment and portions of the discovery order and remand the case so that a particularized assessment of the purportedly privileged communications may be made. As to the plaintiffs' reliance on the common interest doctrine, we agree with the motion judge that the plaintiffs failed to establish that they were entitled to the doctrine because they were not both represented by counsel when they shared privileged information with each other. Finally, we conclude that the plaintiffs failed to establish that their accountants were necessary agents of their attorney, and thus they failed to establish that communications with those accountants were entitled to protection as attorney-client communications. Accordingly, we affirm the judge's ruling that communications withheld on the basis of the common interest doctrine should be produced, as well as the judge's similar ruling with respect to communications with the accountants. However, we vacate the remainder of the discovery order and remand for further proceedings.

Reasoning

With these principles in mind, we turn to the case at hand. As we have already stated, the plaintiffs allege that Allen committed a breach of his responsibilities to their mother in his handling of her legal affairs while she was alive, and to them while he was acting as trustee after the mother's death. These professional liability claims against Allen do not depend on communications the plaintiffs had with attorneys they hired or consulted to look into and evaluate Allen's performance. The claims against Allen rise and fall on what he did, or did not, do; they do not depend on legal advice from the lawyers the plaintiffs hired to look into Allen's performance. This is not a situation like the one in Zabin, 73 Mass. App. Ct. at 157-158, where the lawyers had all been involved in handling the same underlying litigation. Accordingly, the plaintiffs did not place "at issue" their attorney-client communications with other lawyers simply by asserting claims against Allen.

By contrast, the plaintiffs' reliance on the discovery rule to toll the statute of limitations did place "at issue" privileged communications to the limited extent they bear on the question of when the plaintiffs discovered, or reasonably should have discovered, that they had been harmed or may have been harmed by Allen's conduct.

(Mike Frisch)