Prompts, privilege & discovery
Warner v. Gilbarco, Inc.
The court refused a request for a pro se plaintiff’s AI tools, prompts, drafts, and outputs and treated litigation-preparation material as work product.
Prompts protected01
Case background
Material facts
The defendants sought broad discovery into a self-represented plaintiff’s use of AI after the court had earlier restricted the upload of confidential personnel records to AI platforms.
02
The decision
The court’s ruling
The request was untimely, irrelevant or disproportionate, and reached protected work product. Disclosure to an AI provider was not disclosure to an adversary and did not by itself establish waiver.
Why it matters
What the decision means
The decision rejects automatic waiver merely because a provider processes the material. It also shows why privilege and protective-order compliance remain separate questions.
Limit of the ruling. The court relied on several alternative grounds and had no evidence that confidential discovery had actually been uploaded.
Primary reading