Sotomayor’s First High Court Opinion Bars Immediate Appeal of Privilege Decisions
The U.S. Supreme Court issued its first argued decisions of the term today, and the very first was written by the newest justice, Sonia Sotomayor, in a dispute over a fired employee’s conversations with a lawyer.
The opinion (PDF) by Sotomayor said a court’s ruling against a claim of attorney-client privilege is not subject to an immediate appeal, according to SCOTUSblog and the Associated Press.
The employee, who worked for Mohawk Industries, had claimed that several temporary employees were aliens who weren’t qualified to work in the United States, and he alleged that Mohawk’s outside lawyer pressured him to recant that assertion. Mohawk maintained the conversation was protected by attorney-client privilege, and it had a right to immediately appeal an adverse ruling on the question. The company also sought to protect documents regarding its investigation of the employee.
Sotomayor said an immediate appeal was not warranted.
“Permitting parties to undertake successive, piecemeal appeals of all adverse attorney-client rulings would unduly delay the resolution of district court litigation and needlessly burden the Courts of Appeals,” Sotomayor wrote.
The American Bar Association had urged the opposite result in an amicus brief, saying parties should be able to immediately appeal when a judge rules they have waived attorney-client privilege.
Sotomayor said litigants had other options short of a blanket rule allowing immediate appeals. They could still ask courts to certify adverse privilege rulings for appellate review, she said, or they could petition for a writ of mandamus when there is a clear abuse of discretion. They could also defy a disclosure order, risk sanctions, and appeal a contempt finding.
The case is Mohawk Industries v. Carpenter.
