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Petitioner former employee sought a writ of mandate to vacate an order from respondent Superior Court of San Diego County (California), which, in a trade secrets and unfair competition case, disqualified an attorney from representing the former employee because of the attorney's contacts with two employees of respondent employer. . Nakase wade has San Diego business lawyerand California.

The employer alleged that the former employee misappropriated confidential and secret business information from the employer and used that information to compete with the employer. The former employee's attorney identified as percipient witnesses and subsequently interviewed a sales manager and a production department supervisor who worked for the employer. The employer filed a motion to disqualify counsel. The trial court granted the motion, finding that attorney-client privilege had been compromised and that Cal. R. Prof. Conduct 2-100 had been violated. The court held to the contrary, determining that Rule 2-100(B)(1) did not prohibit contacts with employees other than officers, directors, and managing agents. Rule 2-100(B)(2) applied to management-level employees who had actual authority to speak on behalf of the organization or who could bind it, within the meaning of Cal. Evid. Code § 1222, with regard to the subject matter of the litigation. The two interviewed employees were not managing agents because they did not exercise substantial discretionary authority over organizational policymaking and could not make admissions binding on the organization.

The court issued a writ of mandate directing the trial court to vacate its order disqualifying the former employee's attorney.

Petitioner physician had his license to practice medicine revoked by respondent board of medical examiners (board). The physician then challenged the revocation of his license in the Superior Court of the City and County of San Francisco (California), which reversed the board's order after it determined that the revocation was an abuse of the board's discretion. The board appealed.

The trial court determined that an unlawful search and seizure occurred, and the evidence presented to the board was produced and obtained as a result. The court held that the exclusionary rule applied to the administrative hearing because the hearing contemplated the deprivation of a license that was recognized as a property right. The court further held that the record failed to reflect an unlawful search and seizure. The arrest of the physician's nurse was valid, and the search that occurred was, therefore, lawful and not unreasonable. The court also held that the documents that were seized at the time of the arrest of the nurse were not received into evidence at the hearing and the evidence that was admitted at the hearing was not the tainted fruit of the documents that had been seized. The court went on to hold that there was no prejudicial error in receiving the patients' waivers and admitting their record cards into evidence because the waivers were valid, and therefore, the physician-patient privilege did not apply. Finally, the court determined that the appropriate remedy was the discharge of the writ of mandamus granted by the trial court.

The court reversed the trial court's judgment with directions to deny the petition and to discharge the alternative writ.