The case of Desoto Health & Rehab, L.L.C. v. Philadelphia Indemnity Insurance Co., Download Desoto Health & Rehab, L.L.C. v. Philadelphia Indemnity Insurance Co. (M.D. Fla. Case No. 2.09cv599, Opinon of Magistrate Judge Filed June 10, 2010) also published as 2010 WL 2330286 (M.D. Fla. Opinion of Magistrate Judge Filed June 10, 2010)(Westlaw subscription required in order to access Westlaw) appears to be a First-Party Property Insurance Coverage action. Only Breach of Contract, not Bad Faith, is alleged.
In that case, the Plaintiff and apparently the Policyholder (the Opinion is silent on that issue), propounded an Interrogatory to the Defendant Insurance Company which asked:
Interrogatory number 18 asks the Defendant if it has ever been a party to a law suit involving windstorm damage in Florida from October 1, 2003, to the present and if so state whether you were the plaintiff or defendant, the nature of the action and the date and court in which the suit was filed.
Desoto Health & Rehab, L.L.C. v. Philadelphia Indemnity Insurance Co., 2010 WL 2330286 *4 (M.D. Fla. Opinion of Magistrate Judge Filed June 10, 2010).
The Defendant stated various objections including that this Interrogatory was "overbroad" and that it "could impact the privacy interest of other un-related parties and/or entities not before the Court." Id. The Magistrate Judge was consistent with other Courts in not even addressing the privacy concerns of nonparties raised by the Defendant, because in most such cases the Courts do not even view the Defendant as having standing to raise the interests of nonparties.
However, after reading the above-quoted Interrogatory, the Magistrate Judge was impressed in this case with the objection that the Interrogatory is clearly overbroad in a Breach of Contract case in which the only issue is Insurance Coverage. In other words, the Defendant was really objecting that the Interrogatory was not relevant and that it was not reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence.
The Court denied the Plaintiff's Motion to Compel and effectively sustained the Defendant's objection to answering the quoted interrogatory in that case:
The Plaintiff fails to demonstrate how the information gathered from interrogatory 18 is relevant to the instant breach of contract claim and [the] Motion is therefore, due to be denied regarding Interrogatory 18.
Id. Evidence of how Insurance Companies handle other claims for the same Coverage is routinely compelled, however, where the Plaintiffs are pursuing Claims for Bad Faith in Claim Handling. See generally Dennis J. Wall, "Litigation and Prevention of Insurer Bad Faith" ยงยง 8:20 (Third-Party Case Discovery of Other Claim Files) and 12:14 (First-Party Case Discovery of Other Claims) (Shepard's/McGraw-Hill First Edition; West Publishing Company Second Edition and 2010 Supplement). That is not this case and so Discovery of other lawsuits was not allowed.
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