Pretrial Order Compelling Disclosure of Attorney-Client Communication Not Subject to Immediate Review

Pretrial Order Compelling Disclosure of Attorney-Client Communication Not Subject to Immediate Review In a case at odds with California law, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that a pretrial discovery order that compels disclosure of an attorney-client communication is not subject to interim review. Instead, the parties must continue to litigate and then take up the issue on appeal after the entire case is resolved. The decision came in the case of Mohawk Industries, Inc. v. Carpenter. A copy of the opinion is attached. It is interesting to not that the Mohawk case arose in Federal Court. If it was litigated in a California state court, the result would be different, by virtue of Evidence Code Section 915 which prohibits the disclosure of attorney-client communications to the court even to determine if the privilege exists. This was the gist of a recent ruling by the California Supreme Court in Costco Wholesale Corp. v. Superior Court, 47 Cal.4th 725 (2009), discussed elsewhere on the website.