Oxy Resources Cal. LLC v. Superior Court, 115 Cal. App. 4th 874 (2004)

Oxy Resources and EOG Resources entered into a complex transaction whereby they exchanged interests in a number of oil and gas producing properties. Oxy and EOG anticipated that Calpine Natural Gas LP might sue them as a result of the transaction and, therefore, they entered into a joint-defense agreement before finalizing their negotiations. Once Calpine sued Oxy and EOG, it sought production of 202 documents reflecting communications between the defendants prior to the filing of the lawsuit. The trial court granted in part Calpine’s motion to compel production, ordering Oxy and EOG to turn over 172 documents that post-dated the transaction; the trial court denied Calpine’s motion as to the remaining 30 documents that predated the transaction. The Court of Appeal issued a peremptory writ of mandate and ordered the trial court to review each of the documents at issue to determine whether it was protected by the attorney-client privilege or the work-product doctrine regardless of the date of the document.