In contrast to the somewhat abstract doctrine-driven attorney-client privilege, courts have described the work product doctrine as “intensely practical.” Their treatment of defendants’ surveillance videotape of personal injury plaintiffs provides a paradigmatic example.
In Kent v. Warner, No. 8:23CV3059, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 130425 (D. Neb. July 24, 2024), the court followed other judicial decisions in: (1) acknowledging that defendant’s surveillance videotape deserved work product protection, but (2) agreeing that plaintiff could overcome that protection because he could not obtain the substantial equivalent of the video through other means. And like other decisions, the court “balanced these competing interests” by letting defendant depose plaintiff before disclosing the tape. Id. at *3.
The court then took an equally practical approach in: (1) rejecting plaintiff’s demand that “Defendant . . . disclose the exact dates of the video(s)” and (2) instead allowing defendant to “list[] the ten-month date range of the surveillance footage. ” Id.at *6-7.