BEACON PARK PHASE II HOMEOWNERS ASSOCIATION, INC. vs EAGLE VISTA EQUITIES, LLC

• Court: District Court of Appeal of Florida
• Decided: July 8, 2022
• Docket: 22-1077
• Status: Published

Opinion

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF FLORIDA FIFTH DISTRICT

NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO FILE MOTION FOR REHEARING AND DISPOSITION THEREOF IF FILED

BEACON PARK PHASE II HOMEOWNERS ASSOCIATION, INC.,

Petitioner,

v. Case No. 5D22-1077 LT Case No. 2016-CC-000443-O

EAGLE VISTA EQUITIES, LLC,

Respondent.

________________________________/

Opinion filed July 8, 2022

Petition for Certiorari Review of Order from the County Court for Orange County, Amy J. Carter, Judge.

Scott D. Newsom, of HR Law, P.A., Winter Park, for Petitioner.

Margaret E. Kozan, of Margaret E. Kozan, P.A., Winter Park, and August J. Stanton, III, of Gasdick Stanton Early, P.A., Orlando, for Respondent.

LAMBERT, C.J. Petitioner, Beacon Park Phase II Homeowners Association, Inc.

(“Beacon Park”), seeks certiorari review of an order granting Respondent’s,

Eagle Vista Equities, LLC (“Eagle Vista”), motion to compel the production

of

any and all statements, bills, and invoices for legal services provided on . . . behalf [of Beacon Park] in this action . . . includ[ing] . . . the corresponding hours and hourly rates charged for each entry.

For the following reasons, we dismiss the petition.

Beacon Park was the unsuccessful defendant below in an action

brought against it by Eagle Vista for declaratory judgment and breach of

contract. 1 The trial court later granted Eagle Vista’s motion for an award of

attorney’s fees and court costs and directed the parties to coordinate a

hearing to determine the amount of the fees and costs.

Eagle Vista then filed a request for production of documents under

Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.350 seeking the aforementioned

statements, bills, and invoices that Beacon Park received from its counsel

for services rendered in the case. Beacon Park objected to the requested

production based on relevancy and attorney-client privilege; albeit its

1 The final judgment entered in favor of Eagle Vista was affirmed by this court without opinion. Beacon Park Phase II Homeowners Ass’n v. Eagle Vista Equities, LLC, 325 So. 3d 1287 (Fla. 5th DCA 2021).

2 counsel prepared and submitted a document that simply stated that counsel

had expended an aggregate of 133.6 hours in the trial court and appellate

proceeding and that he charged Beacon Park at a rate of $240 per hour for

his services. Eagle Vista then moved to compel the actual invoices or

statements, to which Beacon Park filed a response in opposition. After a

hearing, the trial court orally found the requested records to be relevant but

entered an unelaborated order that granted Eagle Vista’s motion and

directed that Beacon Park’s counsel’s billing invoices be produced.

Beacon Park asks that we issue a writ of certiorari quashing this order,

asserting that the order fails to adequately protect attorney-client privileged

communications and that the information sought is not relevant to Eagle

Vista’s pending claim for attorney’s fees. To be entitled to this relief, Beacon

Park must show that this “discovery order departs from the essential

requirements of law, causing material injury to a petitioner throughout the

remainder of the proceedings below and effectively leaving no adequate

remedy on plenary appeal.” Montanez v. Publix Super Mkts., Inc., 135 So.

3d 510, 512 (Fla. 5th DCA 2014) (citing Allstate Ins. v. Langston, 655 So. 2d

91, 94 (Fla. 1995)). To that end, “[a]n order that erroneously compels a party

to produce privileged information is a classic example of a discovery order

3 subject to certiorari review because the harm caused by the disclosure of

privileged information is irreparable.” Id. (citing Langston, 655 So. 2d at 94).

In Paton v. GEICO General Insurance, 190 So. 3d 1047, 1052 (Fla.

2016), the Florida Supreme Court determined that “the billing records of

opposing counsel are relevant to the issue of reasonableness of time

expended in a claim for attorney’s fees, and their discovery falls within the

discretion of the trial court when the fees are contested.”2 Accordingly, we

find that Beacon Park has not overcome the “high hurdle”3 for certiorari relief

based on its argument that its counsel’s billing records are not relevant.

As to the issue of whether the billing records of opposing counsel are

nondiscoverable based on attorney-client privilege, the Paton court also

wrote that “the entirety of the[se] billing records are not privileged, and where

the trial court specifically states that any privileged information may be

redacted, the plaintiff should not be required to make an additional special

2 We find no merit to one of Beacon Park’s arguments advanced here that the Florida Supreme Court intended to limit its holding in Paton regarding disclosure of the billing records of opposing counsel solely to claims for attorney’s fees brought against insurance companies under section 624.155 and 627.428, Florida Statutes. 3 See People’s Tr. Ins. v. Foster, 333 So. 3d 773, 774 (Fla. 1st DCA 2022) (observing that “[c]ertorari petitions seeking relief from discovery orders face a high hurdle” (citing McCloud v. Tackett, 308 So. 3d 687, 688– 89 (Fla. 1st DCA 2020))).

4 showing to obtain the remaining relevant, non-privileged information.” 190

So. 3d at 1052.

Thus, there is no categorical rule that all information contained in an

opposing party’s attorney’s billing records, such as those requested by Eagle

Vista in the instant case, is privileged. Admittedly, no mention was made by

the trial court here that possible privileged information in the billing

statements, such as mental impressions or opinions of counsel, should be

redacted. Cf. Finol v. Finol, 869 So. 2d 666, 666 (Fla. 4th DCA 2004) (“If

th[e] billing information [of counsel] contained descriptions of services

rendered which would reveal the mental impressions and opinions of

[opposing] counsel, that information should be redacted as privileged;

however, the remaining information is not privileged and therefore

discoverable.” (citation omitted)).

However, the transcript contained in our record of the hearing on the

motion to compel shows that no request for any redactions to the requested

billing records was ever made by Beacon Park’s counsel, even after the court

announced its ruling that the billing records were relevant and should be

produced. Furthermore, in his written response to the motion to compel filed

below, which is also part of our record, Beacon Park’s counsel separately

prepared and provided a copy of a “detailed billing history” that gave an

5 itemized list of the 133.6 hours that he expended in the entire case, with a

narrative next to each billing entry explaining the specific services rendered

for each. There are no redactions in this document; nor, for that matter, does

it appear that any redactions would be required as none of the entries shows

any mental impressions or opinions of counsel.

Under these circumstances, and though the trial court did not directly

address the claim of privilege in its order, we conclude that Beacon Park has

not sufficiently shown that it has or will suffer irreparable harm resulting from

the subject discovery order. We therefore dismiss its petition for lack of

jurisdiction. See Bared & Co. v. McGuire, 670 So. 2d 153, 157 (Fla. 4th DCA

1996) (explaining that dismissal, rather than denial, is the proper disposition

of a petition for writ of certiorari when the appellate court determines that

there has been an insufficient showing of irreparable harm).

PETITION DISMISSED. 4

EVANDER and WALLIS, JJ., concur.

4 Lastly, we note that while Eagle Vista’s response to the petition for writ of certiorari argued that, among other things, Beacon Park’s petition should be denied for failing to establish the requisite irreparable harm, its counsel nevertheless offered that “any portions of the [billing] documents sought that contain truly privileged substantive information may be redacted.” We commend this professionalism.