in Re State Farm Lloyds

Court of Appeals of Texas·Decided September 3, 2020·No. 02-20-00163-CV·Published

Opinion

In the Court of Appeals Second Appellate District of Texas at Fort Worth ___________________________ No. 02-20-00163-CV ___________________________

IN RE STATE FARM LLOYDS, Relator

Original Proceeding 96th District Court of Tarrant County, Texas Trial Court No. 096-298884-18

Before Gabriel, Birdwell, and Womack, JJ. Memorandum Opinion by Justice Womack MEMORANDUM OPINION

I. INTRODUCTION

In this original proceeding, relator State Farm Lloyds seeks mandamus relief

from an order requiring it to produce certain engineering reports to real parties in

interest Lamont Frawley and Mary Frawley. Because the trial court clearly abused its

discretion and because State Farm lacks an adequate remedy by appeal, we

conditionally grant mandamus relief and order the trial court to vacate its May 26,

2020 “Order on Plaintiffs’ Supplement to Motion to Compel Discovery Responses.”

II. BACKGROUND

As alleged in their petition, the Frawleys’ home was insured by a homeowners’

insurance policy issued by State Farm. The Frawleys later discovered damage to their

home’s foundation and walls, and they made a claim on their homeowners’ policy,

alleging that the damage was caused by plumbing leaks. State Farm’s adjuster, Dan

Wilson, hired an engineering firm, Bryant Consultants, Inc., to issue a report regarding

the damage to the Frawleys’ home. Bryant Consultants’ report found that the damage

was not caused by plumbing leaks but by foundation movement. State Farm then

denied the Frawleys’ claim based on the conclusions contained in Bryant Consultants’

report.

The Frawleys filed suit against State Farm alleging both contractual and extra-

contractual claims—they alleged claims of breach of contract, breach of the common

law duty of good faith and fair dealing, violation of the Deceptive Trade Practices Act, 2 violation of the Texas Insurance Code, and violation of the Prompt Payment of

Claims Act.1 The Frawleys later served requests for production on State Farm, and

Request for Production No. 5 asked State Farm to produce:

[e]ach report issued by Bryant Consultants in connection with the investigation of a claim by you prior to its report issued in connection with the Claim made the basis of this suit. This request is limited to claims for alleged foundation damage in Texas for the five (5) years preceding the Claim made the basis of this suit.

State Farm made the following objections to Request for Production No. 5:

State Farm objects to this Request on the grounds that it is overly broad in subject, and therefore unduly burdensome, constituting nothing more than a “fishing expedition,” in violation of the letter and spirit of discovery law in the State of Texas. What may or may not have occurred with respect to another claim will neither prove nor disprove the existence of any mishandling of this claim. Further, information responsive to this request may contain confidential non-public personal information of State Farm insureds not party to this suit. State Farm also objects to this request because it is not reasonably tailored to the facts of this case. Requests seeking discovery regarding other claims exceed the scope of permissible discovery based on principles recently reiterated by the Texas Supreme Court. First, insurance claims are inherently individual and information regarding other claims is not probative of or relevant to Plaintiffs’ contractual or extracontractual claims. See In re Nat’l Lloyds Ins. Co., 449 S.W.3d 486 (Tex. 2014) (orig. proceeding) (per curiam). Second, such discovery will lead to “unnecessary case-within-a-case litigation.” In re Nat’l Lloyds Ins. Co., 2017 WL 2501107, at *1 (Tex. June 9, 2017). Third, this request is based on speculation and surmise and does not “bear . . . a reasonable expectation of obtaining information that will aid the dispute’s resolution.” In re State Farm Lloyds, 2017 WL 2323099, at *12 (Tex. May 26, 2017). Fourth, the request is unduly burdensome and disproportionate to the amount in controversy. Where the benefits of

1 The Frawleys also brought claims against Wilson, the adjuster, alleging violation of the Deceptive Trade Practices Act and violation of the Texas Insurance Code. 3 proposed discovery are “negligible, nonexistent, or merely speculative,” any expense associated with responding is “undue and sufficient to deny the requested discovery.” Id. at *8.

The Frawleys filed a motion to compel relating to various discovery issues.

The parties were able to resolve those disputes with the exception that they were

unable to resolve their dispute regarding Request for Production No. 5 and their

dispute relating to Interrogatory No. 17, which sought similar information to the

documents sought in Request for Production No. 5.2 In their motion, the Frawleys

argued that the requested documents and information were relevant to show bias and

particularly relevant to their extra-contractual claims to show State Farm’s knowledge

of “how often [Bryant Consultants] concluded a leak caused damage and

recommended repairs, thus resulting in payment of a claim.”

State Farm filed a response to the Frawleys’ motion that included two affidavits

regarding the time and expense it would take to compile the documents and

information requested by Request for Production No. 5 and Interrogatory No. 17. In

one affidavit, Donald Vinciguerra, a State Farm business analyst, stated that State

Farm companies had 706 Texas claims in which State Farm paid Bryant Consultants

for work during the subject five-year period. In the other affidavit, Dan Staalsen, a

State Farm claims team manager, stated that to obtain the documents and information

2 Interrogatory No. 17 asked: “State the number of times you have relied upon a report, in whole or in part, issued by Bryant Consultants as a basis for a claim decision made by you prior to its investigation of the Claim made the basis of this suit. This Interrogatory is limited to claims for alleged foundation damage in Texas for the five (5) years preceding the Claim made the basis of this suit.” 4 sought by Request for Production No. 5 and Interrogatory No. 17, it would require a

file-by-file review of the 706 claim files identified by Vinciguerra. Staalsen averred

that it would take approximately one hour to one and a half hours to review each file

to see if the file had the documents and information requested, and he estimated that

it would cost State Farm an expense in excess of $26,298.50 to conduct the review.

The Frawleys did not controvert Vinciguerra’s or Staalsen’s affidavits.

Following a hearing on the Frawleys’ motion to compel, the trial court

overruled State Farm’s objections to Request for Production No. 5 and ordered State

Farm to produce “responsive engineering reports, without redaction, within forty-five

(45) days from the date of th[e] Order.”3 State Farm filed the present petition for writ

of mandamus challenging that order, and we stayed the order pending our resolution

of State Farm’s petition.

III. DISCUSSION

A. Standard of Review

This court may grant mandamus relief from a discovery order only when (1) the

trial court’s decision is so arbitrary and unreasonable that it is “a clear and prejudicial

error of law” and (2) the relator has no adequate remedy by appeal. In re State Farm

Lloyds,

in Re State Farm Lloyds, (Tex. Ct. App. 2020).

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