New York Court Finds Absent Class Member Not Entitled to Work Product
A Manhattan appeals court (NY Appellate Division, First Judicial Dept.) ruled December 27, 2007 that billionaire Sam Wyly, a major Computer Associates shareholder, was not entitled to obtain the work product of three plaintiffs firms in connection with his claim that the firms settled the CA securities class action for too little.
The court held that unlike a tradtional attorney-client relationship, in which the single voice of a client governs matters such as settlement terms, “the relationship between appointed counsel and an absent member in a class action differs fundamentally….” The court added that:
In sum, while petitioner herein, as an absent class member in the federal action, was entitled to some of the benefits of the attorney-client relationship, such as the right to privileged communications with class counsel and the prohibition against attempts by defendants’ counsel to communicate with him, he had no right to direct the course of the litigation, testify at trial, participate in discovery, or dismiss class counsel. Moreover, petitioner was free to hire his own counsel to appear in the class action if he wished to employ a traditional attorney-client relationship, although his input into the litigation would still have been curtailed, or to opt out of the class action altogether if he was unsatisfied with his limited role.
The full opinion is available here.
