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A Fact Investigation Conducted by Outside Counsel in response to an Employee’s claim of Harassment and Discrimination is Privileged

Author: Wendy Hillger

The California Court of Appeal recently held that outside counsel’s fact investigation of an employee’s harassment and discrimination claims conducted prior to litigation was protected by the attorney-client privilege and work product doctrine.

It has long been California law that when there is a claim of discrimination, harassment or retaliation, the employer must inves­tigate.  This investigation must be thorough, objective and complete.  To help assist with these requirements, some companies have hired outside legal counsel.  This ruling resolves the issue about whether outside legal counsel’s work and communications were privileged.  Companies now should not hesitate to investigate an employee claim with outside counsel.

The Court also ruled that assertion of the “avoidable consequences” defense (the employer took reasonable steps to prevent and correct harassment, but the employee failed to use those measures) in the subsequent lawsuit did not waive the privilege as to a post-employment investigation.

[City of Petaluma v. Superior Court (Andrea Waters), Case No. A145437]

Not Exactly A Midsummer Night’s Dream for Some

Author: David Nied

The Ninth Circuit has handed down two significant decisions under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act in the past week.   In the first decision, United States v. Nosal, the court affirmed the CFAA conviction of David Nosal, a former Korn/Ferry employee who left to start his own competing business with several co-workers.  After Nosal and his co-workers left, Korn/Ferry revoked their computer access credentials.  Nevertheless, the departed employees used the computer access credentials of Mr. Nosal’s executive assistant—who remained at Korn/Ferry—to obtain access to the company’s proprietary database.  The court held that “without authorization” under the CFAA was unambiguous and means “accessing a protected computer without permission.”  Nosal argued that since his former executive assistant was authorized to access the company’s computers, he had not violated the statute.  Not so, said the court:  “once authorization to access a computer has been affirmatively revoked, the user cannot sidestep the statute by going through the back door and accessing the computer through a third party. Unequivocal revocation of computer access closes both the front door and the back door.”  Ad Astra’s David Nied and Michael Dorsi, and former associate, Keenan Ng, submitted an amicus brief on behalf of a former client and in support of the United States in which they discussed the importance of the remedies under the CFAA to small, entrepreneurial businesses in the Bay Area.  You can read The Recorder’s summary of the decision here. The Recorder quoted Mr. Nied’s observation that the decision “confirms that [small businesses] have a tool available to them under the CFAA to protect their business, their intellectual property, and their trade secrets from former employees.”

In the second decision, Facebook v. Vachani, the court concluded that a social-media aggregator, Power.com, and its principal, Steven Vachani, had violated the CFAA by continuing to use Facebook users’ accounts to send spam email and messages to other Facebook users to promote Power.com after Facebook had sent them a cease and desist notice.  Like Mr. Nosal, the defendants argued that they had not violated the CFAA because they had the consent of the Facebook users to send out the emails and messages.  The Ninth Circuit, however, concluded that the cease and desist notice revoked any permission the defendants had to use Facebook’s computers and that the defendants used Facebook’s computers “without authorization” after that point in time.  The court returned the case to the trial court to re-calculate Facebook’s damages from the date of the cease and desist notice.  The takeaway for small business owners is to send out a cease and desist notice the moment you become aware that a third party may be accessing your computers or cloud-based accounts without permission.  You can read more about the decision in The Recorder.

 

 

What is CCP 170.6, and How do Attorneys Use It?

Author: Brian M. Worthington
The situation involving embattled Santa Clara County Court Judge Aaron Persky took a new turn this week when the Santa Clara District Attorney’s Office used California Code of Civil Procedure Section 170.6 to disqualify Judge Persky from an upcoming case. Some of our readers may be wondering, What is CCP 170.6?; When is it used?; and How do attorneys use it? We are here to answer those questions.

CCP 170.6 allows a party to a case (or the attorney representing that party) a one-time opportunity to disqualify a judge who is prejudiced against a party or the party’s cause. It applies equally to criminal and civil cases and has varying time restrictions depending on the type of calendaring system used in the County in which the case is being heard. A party can use CCP 170.6 to disqualify a judge assigned for all purposes, a judge assigned for a trial, or even a judge assigned for a specific motion.

The disqualification must be done in writing or orally under oath. The legal basis for a 170.6 disqualification (sometimes called “papering” a judge) is the bias against a party or cause. But in practice CCP 170.6 has almost unlimited applications—we have seen situations where a judge is disqualified due to personal conflicts with a particular attorney; where a judge has a blind spot toward a particular legal issue; or where a judge is perceived to have a habit of punishing too harshly or too leniently in particular criminal matters.

The ability to exercise a CCP 170.6 disqualification is a major tactical weapon for an attorney. For instance, if an attorney is handling a case where police misconduct is a major element of the defense, the attorney will want to avoid judges with strong law-enforcement ties or history of disregarding police misconduct. CCP 170.6 allows the attorney to do that. But an attorney must exercise great care in making the decision because the attorney can only choose which judge to disqualify, not the new judge assigned. On some occasions, the newly assigned judge may be just as bad on the particular issue as the original judge, or may even be worse on other issues that can come into play. Even using a disqualification and getting a great new judge is not always a cure-all for the client because if the new assigned judge is too favorable, the opposing party can turn around and disqualify the new judge. This leads to an interesting tête-à-tête between the opposing attorneys.

We hope this brief entry helps explain what CCP 170.6 is and how attorneys use to try help their clients. Thank you for reading.

What to Expect When You are Going Through a Divorce

Author: Regina Franco

Divorce takes time.

Once you decide to file for divorce, the next thing you want to do is quickly move on to the next chapter of your life, but divorce doesn’t happen that quickly. There is a mandatory waiting period required by California law and no judgment of divorce can be entered sooner than 6 months from the date the Petition for Dissolution was served onto the Respondent.

While 6 months may feel like a long time, there is a lot of paperwork that needs to be done and taking the proper time to work through your case will oftentimes prove to be time well spent. Divorce can be complicated. A divorce is essentially creating two new families out of one. This requires careful thought in order to make sound decisions about support, property division, and custody.

Divorce is not easy and over the course of at least 6 months, divorce will consume you. It is important that you choose your attorney wisely as the right relationship will make a positive impact on you as you transition into your new life.

Litigation Tip: Settlement vs. Trial

Author: David Nied

It has been almost eight years since the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies published “Let’s Not Make A Deal: An Empirical Study of Decision Making in Unsuccessful Settlement Negotiations.” The study compared verdict outcomes with pre-trial settlement negotiations in over 2,000 cases between 2002 and 2005. The results of the study support the conclusion that it usually is better to settle a case than to go to trial. In support of this conclusion, consider the following:

  • Plaintiffs recovered less at trial than they would have recovered by settling in 61% of the cases;
  • Defendants did worse by going to trial rather than settling in 24% of cases;
  • Both sides made the right decision to go to trial in only 15% of the cases (i.e., the verdict was between plaintiff’s last settlement demand and defendant’s last offer);
  • On average, plaintiffs who made the wrong decision to go to trial recovered $43,000 less than the defendant’s last offer;
  • On average, defendants who made the wrong decision to go to trial ended up liable for $1.1 million more than they had offered;
  • Plaintiffs were more likely to make “poor” decisions to go to trial in contingency fee cases; and
  • Defendants were more likely to make “poor” decisions to go to trial where insurance coverage was generally unavailable.

So, although defendants make fewer bad decisions to go to trial, a bad decision is much more expensive on average. Interestingly, the study also found that making the wrong decision to go trial has actually increased over time based on a study of trial outcomes over 40 years through 2004. (You can read more about the study in a New York Times article. You also can purchase a copy of the article at Wiley.)

We do our best to help our clients understand the risks of proceeding to trial. That includes explaining that no two juries are the same and that not all jurors will see a case the same way a client might see it. And, especially for plaintiffs, it includes the likelihood of making the wrong decision. In most cases, it is better to make a deal.

Silicon Valley: “Two in the Box” References Two of Ad Astra’s Cases

Author: Katy M. Young

In HBO’s show Silicon Valley, the story takes place in one character’s home which he opens up to tech entrepreneurs who need a place to live and work in exchange for equity in their companies, called Hacker Hostel. In the episode titled “Two in a Box,” the characters struggle with landlord/tenant issues that are novel in the age of Airbnb. You can read a synopsis of the plot of the episode here.

Ad Astra had a hand in both of the landlord/tenant issues featured in this episode.

 

First:

“With Pied Piper on its feet, Jared announces he’s moving out of Noah’s guest house and back into his condo, which he’s been renting out on Airbnb. When Jared arrives at his condo he finds his tenant, Ludwig, is still there, claiming he can’t afford to live in the area because people like Jared have raised the cost of living. Ludwig refuses to leave, so Jared begins the long, expensive process of eviction.”

This part of the episode has many similarities to Huang v. Hingorani, Ad Astra Partner Wendy Hillger’s AirBnB-neighbors dispute case which was written up in the San Francisco Chronicle here.

Essentially, the Jared character on Silicon Valley learns the tough truth as the landlord in our case: You get a long, expensive eviction fight.   If you rent your property to one who pays to be there for more than 32 days, even if the rental agreement came through AirBnB, the SF Rent Board has held that the renter acquires traditional tenancy rights. Therefore, to remove a short-term vacation renter who pays to stay more than 32 days yet refuses to leave and keeps paying rent, the landlord’s only course of action is an eviction.

 

Here is the second issue in the episode:

“Erlich shows the Hacker Hostel to a new tenant, and later tries to kick out Jian-Yang so that a new incubee can move into his old room. Jian-Yang doesn’t take the news well and starts freaking out. Later, after Erlich unwittingly reveals why Jared is moving back into the garage, Jian-Yang decides to use California’s tenant laws to his own advantage and also refuses to move out.”

In 2015, Ad Astra represented one of the defendants in the lawsuit Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco v. HackerHome. HackerHome is allegedly a company that rents living space to tech entrepreneurs via the AirBnB platform in violation of San Francisco’s short-term rental law.  In Silicon Valley, the storyline begins in Erlich Bachman’s “Hacker Hostel,” which mirrors the alleged HackerHome activities in both name and function. While living and working in the Hacker Hostel, the main character Richard develops an algorithm meant to help musicians avoid copyright troubles but ends up creating the world’s most powerful file compression technology and becomes the darling of Silicon Valley investors after winning the Tech Crunch competition. The character who owns the Hacker Hostel wants to remove one of the tenants, Jian-Yang, whose company is underperforming so that he can make room for more people involved with Richard’s more successful business, but upon listening to Jared’s problem with his Airbnb renter, Jian-Yang realizes that he’s lived in the Hacker Hostel long enough to acquire tenant’s rights like Jared’s tenant and announces that Hacker Hostel will have to evict him because he’s not leaving.

Now Erlich Bachman and Jared each experience the same landlord/tenant problems that Ad Astra’s clients have had to tackle, although thus far, no one has sued Erlich Bachman for his Hacker Hostel activities.

I was particularly thrilled by this episode of Silicon Valley because usually it relates to my husband’s work in big data cloud computing and the show’s creator goes out of his way to make the show full of inside jokes relevant to tech workers in the real Silicon Valley. This time, our cases featured prominently in the story line and I got to be on the inside of the inside jokes!

Fee Arbitration: What is a “True Retainer”?

Author: Katy M. Young

Ad Astra Partner Katy Young represented pro bono client R. Martinez in a fee arbitration against her daughter’s former criminal defense attorney and reached a settlement whereby the attorney agreed to pay back every dime that Mrs. Martinez disputed at arbitration- and then some!

Mrs. Martinez’ daughter had been charged with murder in Alameda County. The Martinez family cobbled together nearly everything they had to write a check for the attorney’s $25,000 retainer. Mrs. Martinez alleged that she never signed any written agreement with the attorney, but that the attorney had said he would represent Mrs. Martinez’ daughter up to, but not including, trial. Over the course of the next year, Mrs. Martinez felt that this attorney was not an effective advocate for her daughter and made some crucial substantive and procedural errors.

Eventually, Mrs. Martinez retained The Worthington Law Centre, friends of Ad Astra and stellar criminal defense attorneys with offices in Salinas and San Francisco. When Tom Worthington took over Mrs. Martinez’s daughter’s defense, The Worthington Law Centre contacted Ad Astra for assistance in recovering the unused portion of Mrs. Martinez’ $25,000 retainer which was being held by the previous attorney who maintained that the $25,000 was non-refundable, which in ethics parlance means that he asserted that the $25,000 was a “true retainer.”

In response to Ad Astra’s inquiries, the attorney produced to us a document that he claimed was the written fee agreement between he and Mrs. Martinez, but which listed the $25,000 retainer as having been paid by credit card and non-refundable, but that he would represent the client up until the trial at which point a further retainer would be required. Upon questioning, the attorney eventually admitted that this purported fee agreement had not been signed by his actual client- Mrs. Martinez’ daughter- but nevertheless maintained his position that the agreement was valid and entitled him to keep all $25,000 in the face of Mrs. Martinez’ allegation that he owed her a $19,000+ refund. In the fee arbitration papers, Ad Astra’s Katy Young had argued that the attorney owed Mrs. Martinez over $19,000 for failure to have a signed fee agreement with his actual client (and not just the payor), producing a fraudulent document purporting to be a fee agreement between he and Mrs. Martinez, failing to keep contemporaneous time records, and for improperly characterizing the $25,000 as a true retainer when it did not meet the one criterion for true retainers: the retainer was for his time on the matter up to trial and not for his continued availability regardless of time billed. True retainers are actually quite rare since they simply ensure the attorney’s availability to work for the client and have no bearing on any actual work performed. In other words, if the retainer is payment for work then it is not a true retainer and must be refunded to the extent that the attorney’s work was worth less than the retained amount.

Finally, the parties went to fee arbitration through the State Bar of California. On the day of the arbitration, the appointed arbitrator encouraged the parties to try to settle before commencing the proceeding after expressing doubts about the attorney’s defenses. After 15 minutes of discussions with Katy Young, the attorney agreed to pay back all $19,000 that Mrs. Martinez had requested, plus the filing fee for the arbitration!

Attorneys: beware the “true retainer” and always keep contemporaneous time records, even if your case is flat-fee or contingency.

Clients: always get a written agreement with your attorney, be sure to read it and question it where you feel you need more information, and negotiate the terms if anything is unacceptable to you. Make sure you know what you are getting into!

The CFAA’s Double Life: Criminal Application of a Dual Use Statute When the Stakes Are High-Profile

Author: Katy M. Young

Unauthorized access of a computer system can be civilly or criminally actionable under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (“CFAA”). One of the most-cited CFAA cases is U.S. v. Nosal, a criminal case brought by the U.S. Attorneys’ Office against David Nosal, formerly a high-level recruiter with Korn-Ferry. The company that Mr. Nosal worked for was high-profile enough to catch the U.S. Attorney’s attention when Korn-Ferry alleged that after leaving his employment with the firm, Nosal accessed the firm’s computer data without authorization. The U.S. Attorney’s office thus brought suit against Mr. Nosal using the criminal application of the CFAA.

The most recent high-profile CFAA case that caught the U.S. Attorney’s attention and resulted in criminal charges was the St. Louis Cardinals/Houston Astros hacking scandal. The Scouting Director for the Cardinals, Chris Correa, plead guilty to five counts of criminal violations of the CFAA for illegally accessing the Ground Control database maintained by former Cardinals executive Jeff Luhnow in his capacity as an executive for the Houston Astros. You can read all about the guilty plea here: http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/eye-on-baseball/25442384/report-former-cardinals-exec-to-plead-guilty-in-astros-hacking

Obviously, America’s pastime is high-profile enough to warrant the government spending resources to prosecute what is essentially private business espionage. But aside from baseball, what is it that catches the government’s attention in these kinds of cases? Ad Astra represents a law firm that has accused another law firm of hacking their third party cloud storage database of client files. The case is filed in State Court in Southern California but has not yet drawn the U.S. Attorney’s attention, although it has been covered by The Daily Journal and Law 360, both legal news outlets. Although not as high-profile as major league baseball, a hacking claim between opposing lawyers should draw the ire of government lawyers in the U.S. Attorney’s office who share Ad Astra’s concern for our esteemed profession. For the time being, Ad Astra will move forward with the civil claims under the CFAA and wait to see if the statute will be applied against the defendants in a criminal law context.

Tips to Help Your Organization Become Data Breach Ready in 2016

Author: Meaghan Zore

Are you ready for a data breach?  At least 222 data breaches occurred in 2015 affecting at least 159,436,735 records, according to the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a California nonprofit corporation that tracks trends in data privacy. There’s little reason to believe that 2016 is going to see a downtrend in these numbers. Already this year, Time Warner Cable reported a data breach that affected 320,000 of its customers’ records.[1] Given these numbers, it’s no longer a question of “if” a system will be breached, but “when.”

January 28th is Data Privacy Day.  Here are 3 steps to becoming data breach ready in 2016:

  • Establish a Privacy Training and Awareness Program

When we hear of data breaches, often, the image of a nefarious hacker comes to mind. However, 91 of the 222 data breaches in 2015 were caused by unintentional actions, such as misdirecting emails containing sensitive information, lost laptops or smartphones, and improper disposal of non-electronic data. These poor data handling practices resulted in a minimum of 6,090,152 breached records. Having a world-class privacy policy is useless if your organization’s employees are unable to put the policy into practice. When employees understand your organization’s data handling expectations, including how to effectively implement your company’s privacy policy into their day-to-day work practices, data breach incidents decrease.

  • Conduct a Privacy Impact Assessment

A Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) is an analysis of how personally identifiable information is collected, used, shared, and maintained within an organization. Examples of various PIAs can be found on the Federal Trade Commission’s website. You can use a PIA to manage data risks and assess the benefit of engaging in certain data handling practices. Conducting a PIA will help you to better understand and address your company’s  vulnerabilities.

  • Develop a Data Breach Response Plan

A data breach response plan is a course of action intended to reduce the risk of unauthorized data access and to mitigate the damage caused if a breach does occur. At a minimum your data breach response plan should consist of the following: (1) a point person to take charge in the event of a data breach and act as a liaison between various stakeholders and partners; (2) contact information for relevant stakeholders and third-party service providers; (3) procedures for analyzing and containing the damage caused by a suspected data breach; (4) measures to mitigate the damage done and prevent future breaches; and (5) relevant insurance and credit bureau information.

In 2015, companies incurred an average cost of $154 per breached record and were exposed to a consolidated total cost of $3.8 million per data breach.[2] Breaches are going to happen, but preparation will be key to minimizing the damage done to your organization and your clients in 2016 and beyond.

About the author:  Meaghan Zore, founder and principal of Zore Law, advises entrepreneurs and emerging companies on a wide range of legal matters such as business formations, intellectual property issues, commercial agreements and data and privacy considerations. In addition to her practice, she teaches Advanced Civil Procedure: Electronic Discovery and Information Privacy law at Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law.  She may be reached at www.zorelaw.com meaghan@zorelaw.com. Tel: 415-347-0004

 

[1] http://www.privacyrights.org/data-breach

[2] http://www-03.ibm.com/security/data-breach/

A Case of Mistaken Identity

Author: Katy M. Young

Nearly every entrepreneur has fretted over selecting a name for her business. Once selected, enormous amounts of resources are dedicated to building a brand behind that carefully selected name. Some savvy business owners even go so far as to obtain trademark protection for the name of their business and the goods or services they offer. But what happens when even the most conscientious entrepreneur is faced with unscrupulous competition in the marketplace in the form of a similar business that insists upon using your name? Trademark lawyers can add another real risk to the parade of horribles that can occur when there is marketplace confusion over a business name: wrongfully being named in a lawsuit. Behold the story of mistaken identity, and how Ad Astra took care of the problem quickly and inexpensively.

Ad Astra’s client is a consulting business in Oakland, we’ll call them ABC, Inc. for the purpose of this story. ABC, Inc. registered a trademark for its name for the provision of  consulting services. After some time, another business called ABC Partners, which sometimes went by the name ABC Brokerage, started offering similar services, but in Southern California instead of Northern California. ABC, Inc. sometimes gets phone calls for people trying to reach ABC Partners/Brokerage, and at one point, ABC Partners/Brokerage copied ABC, Inc.’s website and used it as their own! ABC, Inc.’s trademark lawyers have written letters to ABC Partners/ABC Brokerage demanding that they stop using the name “ABC,” but they haven’t had the money to bring a trademark infringement lawsuit.

As if the confusion in the marketplace weren’t bad enough (i.e. phone calls for one business going to the other), ABC Partners/ABC Brokerage became involved in an allegedly illegal medical cannabis dispensary in Upland, California and when the City of Upland sued to shut down the dispensary, it named ABC, Inc. as a defendant right along with ABC Partners and ABC Brokerage!  Even being named in a lawsuit that you had nothing to do with can be devastating to a business because of the high cost of participating in litigation.

As ABC, Inc.’s General Counsel, Katy Young called the City Attorney for the City of Upland within 15 minutes of the complaint being served and gently explained that this is  a case of mistaken identity, and ABC, Inc. has nothing whatsoever to do with the matter—except that ABC, Inc. also had a cause of action against ABC Partners/ABC Brokerage. When the City Attorney became obstinate and insisted on keeping ABC, Inc. in the litigation, forcing them to prove a negative, Ms. Young declared her intention to file a motion under California Code of Civil Procedure Section 128.7, which would have told the Judge that ABC, Inc. felt the litigation was frivolous. It also would have forced the City plaintiff to come forward with affirmative evidence showing why it thought that ABC, Inc. was a proper defendant even after being faced with the information that ABC, Inc. was a competitor of ABC Partners/Brokerage. No such information existed. The City had simply been lazy about the investigation and cast too wide a net.

Ms. Young also reached out to the other defendants named in the matter, including ABC Partners/Brokerage, and politely asked them to call the City’s attorney to explain that ABC, Inc. was not involved, else ABC Partners/Brokerage would face a cross-complaint for trademark infringement and equitable indemnity. Recognizing the danger of fighting a two-front war, ABC Partners/Brokerage’s attorney contacted the City Attorney and averred that ABC, Inc. is not affiliated with ABC Partners/Brokerage in any way. Within 10 days from service, the City’s attorney dismissed the complaint against ABC, Inc., thereby saving Ad Astra’s client countless thousands of dollars in litigation expenses. The tactic here was Teddy Roosevelt style foreign policy: speak softly but carry a big stick.