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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURTDISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY
CHAMBERS OF MITCHELL H. COHEN COURTHOUSE
JOEL SCHNEIDER 1 John F. Gerry Plaza, Room 2060UNITED STATES
MAGISTRATE JUDGE CAMDEN, NJ 08101-0887
(856) 757-5446
LETTER ORDERELECTRONICALLY FILEDDecember 21, 2010
TO ALL COUNSEL OF RECORD
Re: Evonik Degussa GmbH v. Materia Inc.Civil No. 09-636
(NLH/JS)Evonik Degussa GmbH v. Elevance Renewable SciencesCivil No.
10-200 (NLH/JS)District of Delaware
Dear Counsel:
This Letter Order addresses defendants request for
translated copies of the German documents (approximately
100,000)
plaintiff produced in discovery. For the reasons discussed
hereindefendants request is GRANTED in part and DENIED in part.
Defendants are not asking plaintiff to translate every
document plaintiff produced. However, to the extent
plaintiff
translated a document in the ordinary course of its business,
the
document shall be produced. No privilege or work product
protection attaches to these documents. Plaintiffs counsel
represented that all of these documents have been produced.
In
addition, all answers to discovery and accompanying summaries
and
charts shall be produced in English. We discussed one example
of
a document of this type at the conference on December 17,
2010.
Defendants also ask plaintiff to produce copies of German
documents plaintiffs counsel asked to be translated for the
purposes of this litigation. Defendants request for these
translations is DENIED for the reason that these translations
are
protected by the work product doctrine. The Court finds that
if
these translations are produced it would result in the
discovery
of plaintiffs counsels mental impressions, conclusions,
opinions
or legal theories which is barred pursuant to Fed. R. Civ.
P.
26(b)(3)(B). The Court finds that plaintiffs counsels
identification of which of thousands of documents to review
and
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translate will reveal his legal strategies and thought
processes.
See Spork v. Peil, 759 F.2d 312, 316 (3d Cir. 1985)(the
selection
and compilation of documents by counsel falls within the
highly-
protected category of opinion work product). However, the
Court
adds that if the production of plaintiffs translated
documents
will not reveal counsels thought processes, the documents must
be
produced. See Plant Genetic Systems, N.W. v. Northrup King
Co.,
174 F.R.D. 330, 332 (D. Del. 1997)(ordering production of
20,000
one-line English language summaries that were merely part of
a
culling rather than a protected selection of documents).
In addition to the foregoing, and for the reasons stated on
the record on December 17, 2010, the Court directs plaintiff
to
identify with greater precision the nature, type and categories
of
German documents it produced so defendants can make an
informed
decision of whether to translate the documents and, if so,
which
documents to translate. Plaintiff is ORDERED to specify by
Bates
number the documents responsive to defendants document
requests
and to identify the sources of the documents and the
categories
and types of the documents. For example, whether a document
is
a memo, letter, email, etc., and which documents came from a
particular persons file or e-mail account. As noted, the
purpose
of this more detailed information is to permit defendants to
make
an informed decision whether to translate a document.
Plaintiffs
document production and more detailed designations shall be
served
by January 17, 2011.
Very truly yours,
s/Joel Schneider
JOEL SCHNEIDER
United States Magistrate Judge
JS:jk
cc: Hon. Noel L. Hillman
