Florida Supreme Court decides that financial relationship between defendant’s automobile liability insurer and his expert witnesses is discoverable.

In this automobile negligence case, the plaintiff sought to discover from the defendant information concerning the financial relationship between the defendant’s non-party insurer and his expert witnesses. After recognizing that Florida law has long allowed discovery of certain financial-bias information, the Florida Supreme Court held that it is not a departure from the essential requirements of law to permit discovery regarding the financial relationship between a defendant’s non-party insurer and an expert witness retained by the defense, reasoning that the information sought was relevant to the witness’s bias and would enhance the truth-seeking function and fairness of the trial. Notably, though, the court did not address the requirement of Rule 1.280(5) for a plaintiff to show the existence of “most unusual or compelling circumstances” before seeking to compel an expert to produce financial and business records. That requirement remains in effect and, therefore, should still serve as a basis for the defendants’ objections to pre-mature or impermissible discovery requests for financial and business records of their expert witnesses.

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