Thursday, June 25, 2026
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Defense Counsel Were Wrongly Disqualified After Accessing Dropbox Folders—C.A.
Links Were Inadvertently Provided in Discovery; Opinion Rejects Assertion That Recipients Should Have Realized Files Were Intended to Be Confidential
By a MetNews Staff Writer
The Court of Appeal has held that a judge erred in granting a motion to disqualify a law firm representing the defendant based on its failure to immediately stop reviewing purportedly inadvertently disclosed materials, under circumstances where an unaddressed three-page letter/memo, provided in response to discovery requests, listed links to digital folders—including one referencing the name of the plaintiff’s lawyer—containing documents.
Highlighting that documents on the Internet opened by the Irvine firm of Callahan & Blaine (“C&B”) in the digital folders “appear to be non-privileged and directly relevant to the lawsuit,” the court declared in its opinion, filed Tuesday:
“What makes the disqualification order here distinguishable from any published case we are aware of is that C&B was disqualified not for its extensive use of the privileged letter/memo, but instead for its use of non-privileged, discoverable, and highly relevant documents.”
An attorney’s ethical obligations upon finding that he or she is in receipt of inadvertently-produced privileged materials are the subject of the 1999 California Supreme Court decision in State Compensation Insurance Fund v. WPS Inc., in which the court held:
“When a lawyer who receives materials that obviously appear to be subject to an attorney-client privilege…and where it is reasonably apparent that the materials were…made available through inadvertence, the lawyer receiving such materials should refrain from examining the materials any more than is essential to ascertain if the materials are privileged, and shall immediately notify the sender that he or she possesses material that appears to be privileged.”
Ambiguous Letter
Acting Presiding Justice Maurice Sanchez authored Tuesday’s opinion, joined in by Justice Nathan R. Scott and Orange Superior Court Judge Walter P. Schwarm, sitting by assignment, saying:
“Here, the trial court’s order disqualifying C&B runs into two insurmountable problems. First, the letter/memo is too ambiguous to trigger State Fund duties. Second, even if State Fund duties were triggered, C&B has not misused privileged information.”
The question arose after plaintiff Oana Popa filed a complaint against entrepreneur Aaron Simpson, his wife Leanne Simpson, and Quintessentially Group, a British lifestyle-management company he co-founded in 2019 that offers access to exclusive events, asserting sexual battery and civil harassment claims. Attorney Marc Lazo of the Irvine firm K&L Law Group P.C. represented Popa.
In the operative complaint, Popa alleged that she began a romantic relationship with Aaron Simpson, a former Hollywood producer, after the two met “through an adult webcam internet site” and claimed that he “repeatedly committed acts of sexual assault” against her and “Stockholm syndromed” her by buying expensive gifts after the purportedly predatory acts.
She further alleged that Leanne Simpson and other defendants “facilitated” Aaron Simpson’s alleged harassment by “booking airline trips and lodging” under the guise that Popa was being considered for entry into Quintessentially.
Discovery Requests
In 2022, Leanne Simpson promulgated discovery requests generally seeking any materials that support Popa’s claims. In response, Popa produced 1,426 pages, including a three-page document that contains no letterhead, formal greeting, or address but provides a Dropbox website, password, and a variety of links.
The letter makes one passing reference to “Marc” and the digital files were stored in a Dropbox folder entitled “marc lazo files.”
Documents found in the folder included a handwritten note from Popa to Simpson, blaming a suicide attempt that she attributed to Simpson’s actions in the complaint on her breakup with another man, and a series of text messages in which the plaintiff purportedly admits that photographs showing abrasions on her back were not caused by the defendant.
Popa only realized that the letter was handed over when lawyers for C&B mentioned it in settlement discussions. Lazo, asserting that the letter and accompanying documents were privileged, moved to disqualify C&B.
Orange Superior Court Judge Michael J. Strickroth granted the motion in February 2025, acknowledging that the letter was “less than clear in its nature as privileged and/or confidential,” but finding that C&B was on notice of the privileged nature of the communication after the “marc lazo files” folder was encountered.
Strickroth found that injury to Popa was unavoidable and ordered the firm to destroy all copies of the documents and to refrain from discussing them with subsequent plaintiff’s counsel.
Absence of Labels
Sanchez noted that jurisprudence that followed State Fund clarified that the absence of “confidential” labels on a communication is not dispositive and that courts are to consider whether a reasonably competent attorney, knowing the circumstances surrounding the litigation, would have concluded that the materials were privileged.
Saying that the cases finding that inadvertently-disclosed materials triggered an attorney’s ethical obligations under State Fund involve situations in which “the receiving attorney either admitted they quickly realized the document was privileged…, or the case involved an e-mail where the sender and recipient were clearly the attorney and client,” the jurist remarked:
“The letter/memo here could hardly be more different. To begin with, it is not addressed to anyone….[T]here is nothing in the letter/memo that makes it reasonably apparent that it was produced inadvertently. It contains Popa’s commentary on the evidence, which commentary is heavily biased in her favor. The commentary is relevant to the issues, and there is nothing about the commentary to suggest it was produced unintentionally. In short, it is unclear who the letter/memo is addressed to, and there is nothing in it to clearly suggest that its production was inadvertent.”
Adding that “[t]he trial court essentially agreed with this” but “was persuaded that the file structure of the Dropbox folder…put C&B on notice that the materials within were privileged,” he responded:
“We disagree for at least two reasons. First, the inference C&B supposedly should have drawn was simply not true: the materials within the ‘marc lazo files’ were not actually privileged. Second, we agree with C&B that merely associating opposing counsel’s name with a digital folder does not make it clear or obvious that the documents are privileged such that C&B had to stop in its tracks.”
Reasonable Presumption
He continued:
“Marc Lazo was the attorney producing the documents. It is entirely reasonable to presume that he was producing electronic documents under a folder with his name on it, or that Popa originally created the collection with that name but it was then produced in its original format because the letter/memo and the documents themselves were not privileged. As a result, State Fund duties never triggered.”
Declaring that, even if those obligations had been prompted, “we hold it was an abuse of discretion to disqualify C&B under the circumstances,” the justice commented:
“So far as we can determine, the letter/memo itself does not create any significant vulnerabilities for Popa, and Popa has not argued that it does….Instead, C&B was disqualified for relying on two documents within the Dropbox files: the handwritten letter from Popa to Simpson, and a series of text messages that Popa sent to third party…, neither of which are privileged, and both of which are highly relevant to Popa’s allegations.”
Noting that “[t]he use of nonprivileged and relevant evidence generally does not constitute an unfair advantage at trial such that disqualification would be warranted,” he wrote:
“A trial is ultimately a search for the truth….[T]he handwritten letter from Popa to Simpson and the texts between Popa and [the] third party…are relevant, not privileged, and will facilitate the ascertainment of truth. Consequently, it was an abuse of discretion to disqualify C&B for its use of nonprivileged, relevant, and discoverable evidence.”
Under those circumstances, he declared:
“The order of February 4, 2025, is reversed to the extent it disqualified C&B, ordered Simpson and C&B to destroy all copies of the Dropbox files, and sealed all documents obtained from the Dropbox files. Our holding does not affect the court’s ruling sealing and ordering destruction of the letter/memo, which has not been challenged on appeal. Simpson shall recover his costs incurred on appeal.”
The case is Popa v. Simpson, 2026 S.O.S. 1814.
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