Raul Suarez v. Courtney Alexander

• Court: District Court of Appeal of Florida
• Decided: May 7, 2025
• Docket: 3D2024-1850
• Status: Published

Opinion

Third District Court of Appeal State of Florida

Opinion filed May 7, 2025. Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.

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No. 3D24-1850 Lower Tribunal No. 22-23838-CA-01 ________________

Raul Suarez, et al., Petitioners,

vs.

Courtney Alexander, et al., Respondents.

A Writ of Certiorari to the Circuit Court for Miami-Dade County, Beatrice Butchko Sanchez, Judge.

Sastre Saavedra & Epstein, PLLC, Richard C. Kearley III, and Michael A. Sastre, for petitioners.

Kula & Associates, P.A., Elliot B. Kula, and W. Aaron Daniel, for respondents.

Before LINDSEY, MILLER, and GORDO, JJ.

MILLER, J. Petitioners, Raul Suarez and CWC Transportation, LLC, the

defendants in a personal injury action, seek a writ of certiorari quashing a

discovery order that granted, in part, a motion to compel better answers and

responses to expert witness discovery filed by respondent, Courtney

Alexander, a plaintiff in the lawsuit. 1 Material to this proceeding is that the

order requires nonparty witnesses to execute and notarize answers to

interrogatories and defendants to provide any information regarding the

experts’ financial relationship with the defendants and their attorneys and

insurance carriers.

“It is well settled that to obtain a writ of certiorari, there must exist ‘(1)

a departure from the essential requirements of the law, (2) resulting in

material injury for the remainder of the case (3) that cannot be corrected on

postjudgment appeal.’” Reeves v. Fleetwood Homes of Fla., Inc., 889 So.

2d 812, 822 (Fla. 2004) (quoting Bd. of Regents v. Snyder, 826 So. 2d 382,

387 (Fla. 2d DCA 2002)). “Irreparable harm required by the second and third

elements is jurisdictional and must be found before considering whether

there has been a departure from the essential requirements of the law.”

Skelly v. Skelly, 277 So. 3d 1087, 1089 (Fla. 5th DCA 2019). “A ruling

constitutes a departure from the essential requirements of law when it

1 Plaintiff Robert Miller is an additional respondent.

2 amounts to a violation of a clearly established principle of law resulting in a

miscarriage of justice.” Clay County v. Kendale Land Dev., Inc., 969 So. 2d

1177, 1180 (Fla. 1st DCA 2007) (quotation marks and citation omitted).

Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.340 governs interrogatories. It

authorizes the service of interrogatories on “the plaintiff . . . and on any other

party . . . .” Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.340(a)(2). The rule does not extend to

nonparties. Nonparties, “including a party’s attorney, may be examined only

by deposition.” Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.340 author’s comment to 1967 amendment.

Consistent with this plain language, Florida courts have found that

requiring a nonparty to respond to interrogatories constitutes a departure

from the essential requirements of law, causing irreparable harm. See

Parker v. James, 997 So. 2d 1225, 1226–27 (Fla. 2d DCA 2008); Broward

County v. Kerr, 454 So. 2d 1068, 1069 (Fla. 4th DCA 1984). The

underpinning rationale is that imposing such a burden “could have a ‘chilling

effect’ on a party’s ability to obtain [experts] willing to testify.” Allstate Ins.

Co. v. Boecher, 733 So. 2d 993, 997 (Fla. 1999) (quoting Elkins v. Syken,

672 So. 2d 517, 522 (Fla. 1996)).2

2 In Boecher, the Florida Supreme Court concluded that neither its prior decision in Elkins nor Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.280 precluded a plaintiff from obtaining discovery from a defendant regarding the defendant’s use and compensation of its testifying expert. See Boecher, 733 So. 2d at 997. The Elkins court approved this court’s en banc decision in Syken v.

3 Here, the order contravenes rule 1.340 because it requires the

nonparty experts to “execute and notarize” interrogatory answers. Although

Parker, Kerr, and their progeny involved the service of interrogatories directly

on nonparties, this is a difference without a distinction. Designating

defendants as the intermediaries imposes the same burden and achieves

the same result as authorizing the service of interrogatories directly on the

nonparty experts.

As to the secondary issue of financial bias discovery, “[t]he discovery

requests were directed to [d]efendants[] but sought information in the

possession of their experts, lawyers, and insurer[s], who were not named as

defendants in the action.” Angeles-Delgado v. Benitez, 300 So. 3d 263, 263–

64 (Fla. 3d DCA 2019). The order requires defendants to furnish “any”

information relating to the experts’ financial relationship with defendants,

their attorneys, and insurers. This expansive language necessarily

encompasses any financial and business records. Absent a finding of

Elkins, 644 So. 2d 539, 547 (Fla. 3d DCA 1994), which quashed an order ratifying broad discovery requests propounded directly upon medical experts. See Elkins, 672 So. 2d at 518. At issue was a compilation of extensive financial bias materials, including private tax returns. Id. Our court concluded that “[t]he production of the information ordered in the cases before us causes annoyance and embarrassment, while providing little useful information.” Syken, 644 So. 2d at 545. Elkins served as the basis for later amendments to rule 1.280 circumscribing the proper scope of discovery.

4 unusual or compelling circumstances, this type of production exceeds that

authorized under Elkins, Boecher, and rule 1.280 and creates a palpable risk

of cat-out-the-bag disclosures. See Horne v. K-Mart Corp., 558 So. 2d 1079,

1080 (Fla. 4th DCA 1990). Accordingly, we are constrained to grant the

petition and quash those portions of the order discussed herein.

Petition granted. Order quashed, in part.