MARILYN ROSEANNE HUNT, PETITIONER,
v.
JAMES LIGHTFOOT, RESPONDENT.

Fla. 1st DCA | 2018-02-09
No. 1D17–3938
239 So. 3d 175 Florida District Court of Appeal, First District (2018)

AI-generated. These summaries, headnotes, and key points are machine-generated and may contain errors or omissions. Always verify against the full opinion text below. Not legal advice.

Synopsis

Hunt, a defendant in a civil litigation, challenged a trial court order compelling production of a 2016 surveillance video that she did not intend to use at trial, even though she produced a 2014 surveillance video she did intend to use. The First District Court of Appeal granted Hunt's certiorari petition and quashed the order, holding that attorney work product protecting surveillance materials is discoverable only if the party intends to use it at trial.


Holding

The court held that the content of surveillance video is discoverable only if the party intends to use it at trial. Because Hunt unequivocally did not intend to use the 2016 surveillance video at trial, the trial court departed from the essential requirements of law in ordering its production absent a showing of extraordinary circumstances, which the respondent made no attempt to establish.


Headnotes

[1] Surveillance videos prepared in anticipation of litigation constitute attorney work product.

[2] The existence of surveillance must be disclosed upon request, regardless of whether it will be used at trial.

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Key Quotes

“although the existence of the surveillance must be disclosed upon request whether or not it will be used at trial, the content of the surveillance is discoverable only if it will be used at trial”

Establishes the core legal principle distinguishing disclosure of surveillance existence from disclosure of surveillance content based on trial use

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Facts & Procedural History

Hunt retained an investigator who conducted surveillance of the plaintiff Lightfoot in 2014 and again in 2016. Hunt disclosed the 2014 surveillance vi…

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Opinion of the Court
Wetherell, J.

Wetherell, J.

Marilyn Roseanne Hunt, the defendant below, petitions for a writ of certiorari to review an order compelling production of a surveillance video of Respondent that Hunt does not intend to use at trial. We grant the petition and quash the order for the reasons that follow.

I

Respondent, the plaintiff below, served discovery requests on Hunt for copies of "all videos, photographs, reports, invoices, documents and any other item(s) and/or documents pertaining to any and all surveillance performed o[n] Plaintiff." Hunt objected on grounds of attorney work product, but she agreed to produce copies of anything that she intended to use at trial in accordance with the court-mandated exhibit exchange.

The trial court held a hearing on the objection. At the hearing, Hunt's counsel told the trial court that (1) Respondent had been provided a copy of the 2014 surveillance video that Hunt intended to use at trial, and (2) additional surveillance was conducted in 2016 but Hunt did not intend to use video of that surveillance at trial. Respondent's counsel referred the trial court to Dodson v. Persell , 390 So.2d 704 (Fla. 1980), and argued that although Hunt was not required to disclose the contents of the surveillance that she did not intend to use at trial, she was required to disclose the existence of all surveillance.1

*177The trial court overruled Hunt's objection and ordered her to provide the following information about the 2016 surveillance: "the person who took the film, when it was taken, and where it was taken."

After Hunt provided this information, Respondent filed a motion to compel production of the 2016 surveillance video. In direct contradiction to the position taken by his counsel at the hearing, Respondent argued in the motion to compel that the contents of all of the surveillance must be disclosed because Hunt intended to use a portion of the surveillance at trial. The trial court granted the motion without further hearing and ordered Hunt to produce the 2016 video.2

Hunt timely filed a petition for writ certiorari in this court to review the trial court's order. We expedited consideration of the petition on Respondent's motion, and based on the impending trial date, we issued an unpublished order granting the petition and quashing the challenged order. We now issue this opinion explaining our ruling.

II

Certiorari relief is appropriate when an order departs from the essential requirements of the law and causes material injury to the petitioner that cannot be remedied on appeal. See Martin-Johnson v. Savage , 509 So.2d 1097, 1100 (Fla. 1987). Although "not every erroneous discovery order creates certiorari jurisdiction in an appellate court," id. (emphasis in original), it is appropriate for the appellate court to exercise its certiorari jurisdiction to review an order permitting discovery of material protected by the attorney work-product privilege because the resulting harm cannot be remedied on appeal. See Allstate Ins. Co. v. Langston, 655 So.2d 91, 94 (Fla. 1995) (explaining that "certain kinds of information 'may reasonably cause material injury of an irreparable nature,' " including "cat out of the bag" information such as that "protected by privilege, trade secrets, work product, or involving a confidential informant") (quoting Martin-Johnson, 509 So.2d at 1100 ).

It is well-established that surveillance videos and other materials prepared by a party's investigator in anticipation of or in connection with litigation are attorney work product. See Dodson , 390 So.2d at 707. It is also well-established that although the existence of the surveillance must be disclosed upon request whether or not it will be used at trial, the content of the surveillance is discoverable only if it will be used at trial. Id. ; see also Huet v. Tromp , 912 So.2d 336, 338 (Fla. 5th DCA 2005) (explaining that "a party may waive the work product privilege with respect to matters covered by an investigator's anticipated testimony when a party elects to present the investigator as a witness").

Here, it is undisputed that Hunt does not intend to use the 2016 surveillance video at trial. Thus, the content of the video is not discoverable absent a showing of extraordinary circumstances. See Huet , 912 So.2d at 340-41 (quoting *178Dodson , 390 So.2d at 707-08, and Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.280(b)(4)(B) ). Respondent made no such showing, nor did he even attempt to do so below.3 Accordingly, the trial court departed from the essential requirements of law in ordering production of the 2016 video.

We have not overlooked Respondent's argument that because Hunt intends to use the 2014 surveillance video at trial, the 2016 video must also be produced in discovery. However, under the circumstances of this case, we do not find this argument-or the federal cases4 on which it is based-persuasive because the videos at issue in this case do not depict a continuous period of surveillance such that principles of fairness and completeness require the production of the later video in conjunction with the earlier video. Rather, the videos involve entirely separate periods of surveillance that were two years apart and were conducted by different companies.

Moreover, taken to its logical end, Respondent's argument is tantamount to saying that all attorney work product on a particular subject is discoverable if any evidence on that subject is presented at trial. If that were correct, then if an attorney consulted with an expert on a particular issue in preparing for trial but elected to use a different expert on the issue at trial, then the opposing party would have right to discover the facts known to both experts. However, that proposition is inconsistent with the distinction in the Florida Rules of Civil Procedure between testifying experts and consulting experts, see Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.280(b)(5)(A)-(B), and it also finds no support in Dodson , wherein the Court emphasized that "one party is not entitled to prepare his case through the investigative work product of his adversary where the same or similar information is available through ordinary investigative techniques and discovery procedures." 390 So.2d at 708.

That said, we recognize that in Northup v. Acken , 865 So.2d 1267 (Fla. 2004), the Court held that a defendant whose attorney had gathered depositions previously given by one of the plaintiff's experts in *179unrelated cases was required to produce all of the depositions in discovery where he intended to use certain unspecified portions of the depositions to impeach the witness at trial. However, Respondent's reliance on that case is misplaced because in Northup , the defendant refused to produce any of the depositions that he might use for impeachment whereas, in this case, Hunt produced the only video that he intends to use at trial. Thus, while Northup stands for the proposition that a party must disclose materials-including attorney work product-that the party may use at trial, id., at 1272, it does not require disclosure of attorney work product (such as the 2016 surveillance video in this case) that the party unequivocally does not intend to use at trial.

III

In sum, because the trial court departed from the essential requirements of law in ordering Hunt to produce the 2016 surveillance video that is protected by the attorney work-product privilege thereby causing material injury that cannot be remedied on appeal, we grant Hunt's petition for writ of certiorari and quash the order compelling production of the 2016 video and the financial information related to that video.

PETITION GRANTED; ORDER QUASHED .

Ray and M.K. Thomas, JJ., concur.


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