Kenneth Chiate, Quinn Emanuel. (Photo: Jamie Rector)

Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan plans to appeal a judge's order disqualifying it from representing 137 victims of a massive wildfire in Southern California last fall.

On June 14, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge William Highberger found that Quinn Emanuel's lawyers, in three separate communications with attorneys for electric utilities company Southern California Edison more than a year ago, had obtained confidential information with a “substantial relationship” to the wildfire cases now pending. Edison “faces substantial prejudice” without disqualifying Quinn, Highberger wrote.

“And, ultimately, the integrity of the legal system is implicated by Quinn's conduct,” he wrote. “If left unchecked, the public nature of Quinn's side-switching would likely undermine the public's trust in the scrupulous administration of justice and integrity of the bar.”

Quinn Emanuel plans to appeal the ruling.

“We disagree with the court's ruling,” said Quinn Emanuel partner Kenneth Chiate in Los Angeles. “We believe there was no material confidential communication in any of the communications that were at issue, and the court decided otherwise, and we think that that was wrong.”

Southern California Edison, represented by Los Angeles-based Hueston Hennigan, provided a statement: “SCE is pleased with the court's ruling, which ensures proper protection of SCE's confidential information while leaving parties who had retained Quinn Emanuel to be competently represented by Quinn's co-counsel, which was not disqualified.”

Quinn's co-counsel, Gregory Waters at Engstrom, Lipscomb & Lack of Los Angeles, did not respond to a request for comment.

The disqualification comes about a month after a federal magistrate judge in San Francisco booted Quinn Emanuel from an antitrust case against Uber Technologies Inc., its former client.

Quinn, which has represented San Diego Gas & Electric and Pacific Gas & Electric Co. (PG&E) in prior California wildfire litigation for the past decade, filed three lawsuits over the Woolsey fire, including one on behalf of former U.S. Congressman David Dreier, who lost his Malibu home. The Woolsey fire destroyed 500 properties and killed three people in Southern California.

Last month, Southern California Edison filed a motion to disqualify Quinn Emanuel on grounds that it had obtained confidential information from “strategy calls” with Hueston Hennigan and at a December 2017 meeting that also involved former Quinn clients San Diego Gas & Electric and PG&E. Also, that same month, Quinn interviewed to represent Southern California Edison in litigation tied to a 2017 wildfire that hit Southern California.

Quinn, opposing the motion, insisted that it did not receive confidential information, particularly from the pitch meeting, which lasted less than an hour, and called the disqualification motion nothing more than a tactical strategy. Plus, the firm also never represented Southern California Edison, and used screening and ethical walls as prophylactic measures.

But Highberger, in his order, said he could presume that Quinn got confidential information—whether Edison could prove it or not.

“Though SCE was not required to prove that Quinn actually obtained SCE's confidential and privileged information, SCE has persuasively shown that material confidential information was provided to lawyers of Quinn,” he wrote.

At the joint 2017 meeting with all the utilities, for example, Quinn gave a presentation on “inverse and negligence claims in wildfire matters,” the judge wrote. And phone calls in 2018 between Quinn's lawyers and Hueston Hennigan discussed confidential legal strategies.

At the 2017 pitch meeting to represent Edison, Quinn presented a slide deck called “Potential Wildfire Litigation Strategies for Southern California Edison Company,” including how to address inverse condemnation and class actions. Quinn's lawyers said they did not recall obtaining confidential information at that meeting, but Edison's in-house attorneys, the judge wrote, took “contemporaneous notes.”

The judge found “significant factual overlap” between the wildfire litigation that was the subject of the 2017 pitch meeting and the Woolsey fire, both of which implicated Southern California Edison.

“In short,” he concluded, “the factual issues that overlap are many, which is sufficient for purposes of the substantial relationship test.”

But the judge never heard exactly what the confidential information was that Quinn allegedly obtained, Chiate said.

“He believes it was material and confidential without knowing what it was, and concludes that by implication if it was said in this setting, it must have been confidential and material,” Chiate said. “We said you can't make that conclusion without hearing what it was.”

Chiate also flagged a footnote that Highberger wrote, stating: “The court does believe that attorney Chiate was proceeding in subjective good faith (believing that he and his Quinn colleagues had not been shown anything material in confidence), but that does not change the outcome.”

“To me, that tells you a lot,” Chiate said. “It means he interprets the setting differently than we interpreted the setting.”