20 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 237a
Online Reference: FLWSUPP 2003AGARInsurance — Personal injury protection — Discovery — Trial court departed from essential requirements of law by denying motion to quash subpoenas requiring third-party vendors to produce copies of all payments made by vendors to insurer’s expert for performance of independent medical examinations — Subpoenas demand information that had no relevance to instant case or to relationship between instant insurer and expert — Certiorari review of discovery order requiring information from third-party vendors is proper since vendors have no adequate remedy by appeal — Remand for trial court to narrowly tailor an order directed to relationship between insurer and expert
UNITED AUTOMOBILE INS. CO., Petitioner, vs. SANTA FE MEDICAL CENTER, a/a/o ALCIDES GARCIA, Respondent. Circuit Court, 11th Judicial Circuit (Appellate) in and for Miami-Dade County. Case No. 10-170 AP. L.T. Case No. 09-4367 CC 26. November 15, 2012. A Petition for Writ of Certiorari from County Court for Miami-Dade County. Counsel: Lara J. Edelstein, for Petitioner. Christian Carrazana, for Respondent.
(Before FIRTEL, MANNO SCHURR, and HERSCH, JJ.)[Original Opinion at 20 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 5a]
(HERSCH, Judge.) Respondent’s Motion for Rehearing is granted. The opinion of October 3, 2012 is withdrawn and the following is entered in its place.
United Automobile Insurance Company (United Auto), by petition for writ of certiorari, seeks to overturn an order of the trial court denying its motion to quash a number of subpoenas duces tecum filed by Santa Fe Medical Center (Santa Fe) against non-party vendor companies. These vendor companies, on behalf of insurance companies or others, hire physicians to perform medical record reviews or physical examinations on insurance claimants. The subpoenas at issue seek copies of “all payment records” issued by each vendor company to Dr. Peter J. Millheiser, M.D., or Coral Reef Orthopedics, for independent medical examinations (IMEs) performed by Dr. Millheiser or IME reports prepared by him.
Information on the amounts paid to an expert by a party is clearly discoverable. Allstate Insurance Company v. Boecher, 733 So. 2d 993 (Fla. 1999) [24 Fla. L. Weekly S187a]. The right to this information is not affected by the fact that the examinations are arranged and compensated by way of a third party vendor. Southern Diagnostic Associates v. Bencosme, 833 So. 2d 801 (Fla. 3d DCA 2002) [27 Fla. L. Weekly D2344d]. However, the instant subpoenas do not limit the information sought to payments made for IME’s and reports conducted or prepared on behalf of United Auto, the insurer involved in the instant case. Thus, this Court finds that the trial court departed from the essential requirements of law in approving these subpoenas. See Bencosme, supra.
This Court is not unmindful of the recent pronouncement of the Florida Supreme Court in Board of Trustees of Internal Improvement Fund v. American Educational Enterprises, __ So.3d __, 2012WL 4449131 (Fla. Sept. 27, 2012) [37 Fla. L. Weekly S589a] re-affirming that overbreadth of a discovery request, alone, is insufficient to invoke certiorari jurisdiction. This case presents additional factors that leads this Court to believe that, in fact, material injury results from this order which would exist for the remainder of the case and for which no adequate remedy on appeal exists. Specifically, the information is not requested from the party insurer or the expert, but rather from a third party vendor. Rappaport v. Merchantile Bank, 17 So. 3d 902 (Fla. 2d DCA 2009) [34 Fla. L. Weekly D1910b] (Certiorari proper where production sought from nonparty as nonparty has no adequate remedy by appeal); Parker v. James, 997 So. 2d 1225 (Fla. 2d DCA 2008) [34 Fla. L. Weekly D32c](Same.). The subpoenas demand information from the vendors that have no relevance to the instant case or the relationship between the instant party insurer and the expert. Once the financial information requested is disclosed by the nonparties, it will be “out of the bag,” unable to be “undisclosed.” For this reason, and because the nonparties have no adequate remedy by appeal, the material injury that the nonparties would suffer by disclosing the irrelevant financial information would be irreparable.
Accordingly, we grant certiorari, quash the order under review and remand for the trial court to narrowly tailor an order that is directed to the relationship between Dr. Millheiser and United Auto. See Bencosme, supra.
Respondent’s motion for attorneys’ fees is denied. (FIRTEL and MANNO SCHURR, JJ. concur.)
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