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raises the question of whether Surgery Center took reasonable
precautions to preserve their confidentiality. The failure to
take precautions to preserve the confidentiality of privileged
material can result in the destruction of the material’s
privilege protection. Rice, Attorney-Client Privilege in the
United States, sec. 9:23, at 58-59 (2d ed. 1999); see, e.g., In
re Horowitz, 482 F.2d 72, 82 (2d Cir. 1973) (“It is not asking
too much to insist that if a client wishes to preserve the
privilege * * *, he must take some affirmative action to preserve
confidentiality.”). “When employees leave the client’s
employment, the client must take reasonable steps to ensure that
they do not retain the confidential communications to which they
were given access while employed.” Rice, Attorney-Client
Privilege in the United States, sec. 9:23, at 61 (2d ed. 1999);
see, e.g., Bowles v. Natl. Association of Home Builders, 2004
U.S. Dist. LEXIS 19622, *32-*36, 2004 WL 2203831, *10-*11 (D.D.C.
2004) (holding that defendant-corporation had waived any
attorney-client privilege to documents retained by plaintiff, a
former executive of a subsidiary, because, among other things,
defendant had failed to take reasonable measures to preserve
confidentiality even before plaintiff left subsidiary’s employ
with documents); IMC Chems. v. Niro, Inc., 2000 WL 1466495, *27
(D. Kan. 2000) (declining to uphold attorney-client privilege
given “limited, if any, precautions taken by plaintiff to assure
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