I don’t know what’s in the water in Marshall and Waco these days, but there are protective order issues popping up everywhere for some reason, including this recent one from Judge Albright’s court in Waco.
The issue here was defendant’s request to preserve the designation on certain materials from attorneys eyes only to confidential. Why did the defendant move? The order doesn’t say but the motion (attached) reveals that it was because the plaintiff was saying it was going to share the AEO documents with its employees. Faced with these facts, the defendant asked the court to confirm the designation.
Judge Albright denied the motion, but made a further observation that’s worth noting, especially since it’s a different procedure than some practitioners might be familiar with.
“Should this case proceed all the way through trial, the Parties are on notice that all documents that have been produced during the course of the litigation under a designation of “Attorneys’ Eyes Only” will be re-designated to “Confidential” one week before the date of the Final Pre-Trial Conference with respect to all witnesses that are identified as “will call” witnesses to allow trial counsel time to prepare all witnesses for trial and allow access to all documents regardless of their current designation.”
Order at p. 1-2.
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