Clark v. Superior Court

Grant L. Clark seeks a writ of mandate directing the Superior Court of San Diego County to vacate its November 8, 2010, order disqualifying Clark’s chosen law firm of Higgs, Fletcher & Mack LLP (Higgs) from continuing to represent Clark in his action against real parties in interest VeriSign, Inc., et al. (VeriSign). VeriSign sought the disqualification order because Higgs allegedly received from Clark numerous documents protected by the attorney-client privilege held by VeriSign, and Higgs thereafter (1) excessively reviewed the documents, (2) did not immediately return the documents and (3) affirmatively employed the documents to pursue Clark’s lawsuit against VeriSign. VeriSign asserted these actions violated Higgs’s obligations under Rico v. Mitsubishi Motors Corp. (2007) 42 Cal.4th 807 [ 68 Cal.Rptr.3d 758 , 171 P.3d 1092 ] (Rico) and State Comp. Ins. Fund v. WPS, Inc. (1999) 70 Cal.App.4th 644 [ 82 Cal.Rptr.2d 799 ] (State Fund) and warranted disqualification of Higgs as Clark’s counsel in this action. The trial court found, on disputed facts, Higgs had received and excessively reviewed privileged documents, disqualification was warranted because there was a genuine…