Introduction

The Minnesota Supreme Court said that a report authored for Polaris by regulatory compliance lawyers is not protected from disclosure by the attorney client privilege and can be discovered in a products liability lawsuit against the company. In doing so, the Minnesota Supreme Court formally adopted the “predominant purpose test,” joining the majority of jurisdictions nationwide.

The predominant purpose test asks whether the predominant purpose of a document is to render or solicit legal advice. If so, then the attorney-client privilege protects the entirety of the document from disclosure. If not, then portions of the document that contain legal advice are protected by redaction but the document is otherwise discoverable.Continue Reading Attorney’s Compliance Report Not Entitled to Attorney-client Privilege Under Predominant Purpose Test