Valuable lessons for all practitioners and their clients, including but not only in bad faith cases, are taught by the practice displayed in the bad-faith-in-settlement and vexatious-refusal-to-pay case of Electric Power Sys's Int'l, Inc. v. Zurich Am. Ins. Co., No. 4:15 CV 1171 CDP, 2016 WL 3997069 (E.D. Mo. July 26, 2016).
In that case a liability carrier claimed attorney-client privilege and work product on many documents in its claim file as its reasons for redacting certain documents and refusing to produce other documents during discovery. The opposing party requested an in camera inspection of the documents. The Court ordered many produced -- unredacted -- as a result of seeing them for herself.
No less than three lessons are clearly presented by this ruling:
First, if you want a judge to inspect disputed documents in chambers, ask for the inspection.
Second, a document, like a picture, is worth a thousand words as the saying goes. Many documents that were once withheld from discovery see the light of day after a judge takes a look at them.
Finally, a practical lesson, not necessarily present in this case but quietly present in many cases: A party which raises losing objections in case after case but continues to withhold documents -- and have its objections overruled yet again -- will build up a very poor track record and their reputations will precede them.
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