In Re Von Bulow

828 F.2d 94 (2d Cir. 1987)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

D was indicted on two counts of assault with intent to murder for allegedly injecting his wife Martha von Bulow with insulin causing her to lapse into an irreversible coma. D was convicted on both counts. D then retained Harvard law professor Alan M. Dershowitz to represent him on appeal. The Rhode Island Supreme Court reversed both convictions. Shortly after the acquittal, D's wife, by her next friends, Alexander Auersperg and Annie Laurie Auersperg-Kneissal, Martha von Bulow's children from a prior marriage (Ps), commenced this civil action in federal court for assault, negligence, fraud, and RICO violations. Random House published a book entitled Reversal of Fortune -- Inside the von Bulow Case, authored by attorney Dershowitz, which chronicles the events surrounding the first criminal trial, the successful appeal, and D's ultimate acquittal. Ps notified D that it would view publication as a waiver of the attorney-client privilege. After the book was released, D and attorney Dershowitz appeared on several television and radio shows to promote it. P then moved to compel discovery of certain discussions between D and his attorneys based on the alleged waiver of the attorney-client privilege with respect to those communications related in the book. The court found a waiver of the attorney-client privilege and ordered D and his attorneys to comply with discovery. D petitioned for a writ of mandamus directing the district court to vacate its discovery order.