Five Years after Mohawk: Interlocutory Review of Key Pretrial Rulings 34 Review of Litigation 2015

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34 Rev. Litig. 1 (2015)
Five Years after Mohawk: Interlocutory Review of Key Pretrial Rulings

handle is hein.journals/rol34 and id is 9 raw text is:

Five Years After Mohawk: Interlocutory Review of Key
Pretrial Rulings

David S. Coale*

I. IN TRO D UCTION ............................................................................ 1
1I. THE M OHAWK CASE ................................................................ 3
I. PRACTICE SINCE MOHA WK ...................................................... 5
A. Second Circuit ............................................................... 6
B. Third Circuit .................................................................... 9
C. F ourth C ircuit ................................................................10
D . Fifth Circuit .................................................................. 11
E. Sixth Circuit .................................................................. 12
F. Seventh Circuit ............................................................. 13
G . N inth Circuit .................................................................. 16
H . Tenth Circuit ................................................................. 19
I. D .C . C ircuit .................................................................. 21
J. Federal Circuit ............................................................. 22
IV . CONCLUSION ......................................................................... 23

I. INTRODUCTION

In a bet-the-company trade secret case, Plaintiff seeks
Defendant's internal memoranda about its business strategy.
Defendant asserts the attorney-client privilege over a key handful of
them. Plaintiff moves to compel. The district court wrongly grants
the motion. Privileged material in hand, Plaintiff plans to add claims
for punitive damages, re-depose Defendant's C-level officers, and
post the memoranda on popular industry blogs. What can
Defendant do?
Since the 2009 Supreme Court case Mohawk Industries, Inc.
v. Carpenter,1 one part of the answer is clear: Defendant cannot
immediately appeal the district court's ruling. In Mohawk, the
defendant tried to take an interlocutory appeal after the district court

* Partner, Lynn Tillotson Pinker & Cox, LLP, Dallas, Texas. The author
acknowledges the helpful research assistance of Travis Jones and skillful editorial
assistance of Sherri Byrd.
1. 558 U.S. 100 (2009).