Younkin v. Blackwelder, 46 Fla. L. Weekly S291 (Fla. Oct. 14, 2021)

It is not a departure from essential requirements of law to permit discovery about financial relationship between defendant’s nonparty law firm and its expert witness.

The trial court denied the defendant’s motion for protective order to prevent disclosure of the financial relationship between the defendant’s law firm and the defense’s medical expert. The Fifth District Court of Appeal denied the petition for writ of certiorari, concluding that, even though the seminal case Worley (the attorney client privilege protects the same relationship on the plaintiff’s side) did not apply to this case, the law was not being applied equally and fairly to all litigants and, therefore, certified the question to the Supreme Court. 

The Supreme Court reframed the certified question and upheld the lower court’s decision, finding that it was not a departure from the essential requirements of law to permit discovery regarding the financial relationship between defendant’s nonparty law firm and its expert witness. 

While the court upheld the ruling, the dissent that agreed with the District Court—that the law was not applied equally and fairly in this case—did outline a way to potentially combat and overrule the plaintiff-favoring ruling in Worley: plenary review after a trial and the District Court of Appeal to prohibit this type of discovery from a plaintiff. 
 

 

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