Case Title: Dodgen v. Grijalva

Citation: 

Docket Number: SC19-1118

State: florida

Court: Florida Supreme Court

Date: 2021-10-14T00:00:00Z

Document:
Supreme Court of Florida 
 
____________ 
 
No. SC19-1118 
____________ 
 
BRENT A. DODGEN, 
Petitioner, 
 
vs. 
 
KAITLYN P. GRIJALVA, 
Respondent. 
 
October 14, 2021 
CORRECTED OPINION 
 
PER CURIAM. 
 
This case involves a discovery dispute in an automobile 
negligence case in which the plaintiff, Respondent Kaitlyn Grijalva, 
seeks to discover from the defendant, Petitioner Brent Dodgen, the 
financial relationship, if any, between Dodgen’s nonparty insurer 
and his expert witnesses.  After being ordered to provide the 
discovery, Dodgen filed a petition for writ of certiorari in the Fourth 
District Court of Appeal.  We have for review Dodgen v. Grijalva, 281 
So. 3d 490 (Fla. 4th DCA 2019), in which the Fourth District denied 
Dodgen’s petition.  Id. at 490.  In denying the petition, however, the 
 
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Fourth District opined that this Court’s decision in Worley v. 
Central Florida Young Men’s Christian Ass’n, 228 So. 3d 18 (Fla. 
2017), which the Fourth District interpreted as having held that the 
financial relationship between a plaintiff’s law firm and treating 
physicians is never discoverable, has resulted in the disparate 
treatment of plaintiffs and defendants.  See Dodgen, 281 So. 3d at 
490-92.  The Fourth District then certified the following question as 
being one of great public importance: 
WHETHER THE DECISION IN WORLEY . . . SHOULD BE 
APPLIED TO PROTECT A DEFENDANT’S INSURER THAT 
IS NOT A PARTY TO THE LITIGATION FROM HAVING TO 
DISCLOSE ITS FINANCIAL RELATIONSHIP WITH 
EXPERTS RETAINED FOR PURPOSES OF LITIGATION, 
INCLUDING THOSE THAT PERFORM COMPREHENSIVE 
MEDICAL EXAMINATIONS UNDER FLORIDA RULE OF 
CIVIL PROCEDURE 1.360? 
 
Id. at 492 (citation omitted).  We have jurisdiction.  See art. V, 
§ 3(b)(4), Fla. Const. 
To more precisely express the dispositive issue presented in 
this case—a case involving certiorari review by the district court of a 
discovery order—we reframe the certified question as follows: 
Whether it is a departure from the essential requirements 
of law to permit discovery regarding the financial 
relationship between a defendant’s nonparty insurer and 
an expert witness retained by the defense? 
 
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And we answer this question in the negative.  We thus approve the 
result reached by the Fourth District.  Because, as the Fourth 
District itself acknowledged, Worley is not applicable, we decline to 
readdress the holding or analysis adopted in Worley.   
We begin by reviewing Worley and then the background in this 
case.  We next address Grijalva’s two jurisdictional challenges, both 
of which are meritless.  Lastly, we explain why we answer the 
rephrased question in the negative. 
WORLEY 
In Worley, the defendant sought certain discovery “in an effort 
to establish the existence of a referral relationship between [the 
plaintiff’s] attorneys and her treating physicians.”  228 So. 3d at 20.  
The requested information included asking the plaintiff herself “if 
she was referred to her specialists by her attorneys.”  Id.  After the 
trial court ordered that the information be produced, the plaintiff 
“filed a petition for writ of certiorari with the Fifth District.”  Id. at 
21.  The Fifth District denied the petition, finding “no error 
regarding the trial court’s order,” and certified conflict with a 
decision of the Second District Court of Appeal.  Id. at 22. 
 
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On discretionary review, this Court quashed the Fifth 
District’s decision, while narrowly framing the certified conflict 
issue as “whether the attorney-client privilege protects a party from 
being required to disclose that his or her attorney referred the party 
to a physician for treatment.”  Id. at 20.  In addition to answering 
that narrow question in the affirmative, id. at 25, Worley also held 
that “the attorney-client privilege protects . . . a law firm from 
producing documents related to a possible referral relationship 
between the firm and its client’s treating physicians.”  Id. at 22.  In 
reaching its holdings, Worley also “consider[ed]” the more general 
issue of “whether the financial relationship between a plaintiff’s law 
firm and the plaintiff’s treating physician is discoverable.”  Id.   
Worley’s analysis turned in part on distinguishing this Court’s 
earlier decision in Allstate Insurance Co. v. Boecher, 733 So. 2d 993 
(Fla. 1999), which held that “discovery requests . . . propounded 
directly to a party regarding the extent of that party’s use of and 
payment to a particular expert” were permissible.  Id. at 994.  In 
Boecher, we authorized such discovery because it is “directly 
relevant to a party’s efforts to demonstrate to the jury the witness’s 
bias.”  Id. at 997.  In the wake of Boecher, certain district court 
 
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decisions had “extended Boecher to allow discovery of the financial 
relationship between law firms and treating physicians.”  Worley, 
228 So. 3d at 23.  Worley disagreed with the reasoning of those 
district courts, concluding “that the relationship between a law firm 
and a plaintiff’s treating physician is not analogous to the 
relationship between a party and its retained expert.”  Id.  Worley 
reasoned that, whereas the plaintiff in Boecher “sought discovery 
from the other party, in that case Allstate Insurance,” the plaintiff’s 
law firm in Worley was “not a party to the litigation.”  Id.  And 
Worley distinguished treating physicians from “experts who had 
been hired for the purposes of litigation.”  Id. (noting that treating 
physicians “typically testif[y] . . . concerning [their] . . . own medical 
performance on a particular occasion and [do] not opin[e] about the 
performance of another” (alterations in original) (quoting Fittipaldi 
USA, Inc. v. Castroneves, 905 So. 2d 182, 186 (Fla. 3d DCA 2005))). 
After distinguishing Boecher, Worley concluded that although 
“the evidence code allows a party to attack a witness’s credibility 
based on bias,” id. (citing § 90.608(2), Fla. Stat. (2015)), the 
credibility of the treating physician at issue could be attacked in 
certain ways that did not require “further discovery into a possible 
 
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relationship between the physician and the plaintiff’s law firm,” as 
that discovery “would require the production of communications 
and materials that are protected by attorney-client privilege,” id. at 
24.  Circling back to the certified-conflict issue, Worley held that 
the attorney-client privilege “precludes defense counsel from asking 
a plaintiff whether his or her attorney referred the plaintiff to a 
physician for treatment.”  Id. at 24.1 
THIS CASE 
 
Dodgen (the defendant) filed a motion for protective order in 
the trial court seeking to preclude Grijalva (the plaintiff) from 
discovering information that, if it exists, would establish a financial 
relationship between Dodgen’s expert witnesses and his liability 
insurer, and between those witnesses and his defense law firm.  
Dodgen, 281 So. 3d at 490.  After the trial court denied Dodgen’s 
motion, Dodgen petitioned the Fourth District for a writ of 
certiorari, arguing in pertinent part that the trial court’s order 
departed from the essential requirements of the law, namely Worley.  
 
 
1.  Worley offered certain additional reasons for declining to 
uphold the discovery order, see Worley, 228 So. 3d at 25-26, but 
none have any relevance to our decision here.  
 
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Id. at 491.  Dodgen reasoned that Worley must equally apply to 
defendants, with the result being that “the financial relationship 
between a defendant’s law firm or insurance company and expert 
witnesses is no longer discoverable.”  Id.2   
After recognizing that Florida law has long allowed discovery of 
certain financial-bias information, see id. (citing Boecher, 733 So. 
2d at 997, and Springer v. West, 769 So. 2d 1068, 1069 (Fla. 5th 
DCA 2000)), the Fourth District rejected Dodgen’s argument, 
reasoning that the discovery prohibition adopted in Worley “was not 
broadly written to cover discovery sought from the defense side of a 
case.”  Id.  However, the Fourth District concluded that the 
application of Worley solely to the plaintiff’s side of the case has 
“resulted in disparate and possibly unfair treatment of plaintiffs 
and defendants.”  Id. at 492.  And the Fourth District certified the 
question set forth above.  Id. 
 
2.  While the case was pending in the district court, Grijalva 
withdrew her discovery request as to Dodgen’s defense law firm.  
Dodgen, 281 So. 3d at 491. 
 
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JURISDICTION 
 
Grijalva challenges our jurisdiction on the ground that 
Dodgen’s notice to invoke this Court’s discretionary jurisdiction was 
purportedly not timely filed “within 30 days of rendition of the order 
to be reviewed,” as required by Florida Rule of Appellate Procedure 
9.120(b).  She argues that Dodgen was required to file the notice 
within thirty days of the date the Fourth District issued an order 
stating in pertinent part that the “petition for writ of certiorari is 
denied” and that “[a]n opinion will follow,” even though the Fourth 
District did not issue that opinion until weeks later.  This argument 
is meritless, most obviously because at the time the Fourth District 
issued its order, there was still judicial labor to be performed.  See 
Whitaker v. Jacksonville Expressway Auth., 131 So. 2d 22, 23 (Fla. 
1961) (“[W]hen the labor of the court has terminated with its final 
decision and the issuance of its mandate thereon, it no longer has 
jurisdiction to enter a certificate [certifying a question of great 
public importance.]”).  The flawed nature of Grijalva’s argument is 
underscored by the fact that a motion for written opinion filed 
under rule 9.330(a)(2)(D) tolls rendition of an appellate order.  See 
St. Paul Fire & Marine Ins. Co. v. Indem. Ins. Co. of N. Am., 675 So. 
 
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2d 590, 592 (Fla. 1996) (“[A] district court’s order is not ‘rendered’ 
until there has been a disposition of all motions relative to that 
order.”); see also Fla. R. App. P. 9.020(i) (Rendition of an Appellate 
Order).  And yet, under Grijalva’s logic, a district court order that by 
its very own terms indicates that a written opinion will follow is to 
be treated as “rendered” on the day the unelaborated order is 
issued.  We decline to reach such an absurd result. 
 
Grijalva next challenges our jurisdiction on the ground that 
the Fourth District purportedly failed to “pass[] upon” the certified 
question, as required by article V, section 3(b)(4) of the Florida 
Constitution.  We disagree.  The question certified was passed 
upon—that is, decided—by the Fourth District.  In addressing 
whether Worley “should be applied” to the discovery controversy in 
this case, the Fourth District decided that by its terms Worley could 
not be applied to provide the protection from discovery sought by 
the defendant.  Dodgen, 281 So. 3d at 491-92.  Admittedly, the 
Fourth District’s opinion invites this Court to readdress the analysis 
adopted in Worley, but that does not mean the certified question 
itself seeks an opinion on an issue that was not decided by the 
district court.  We have jurisdiction. 
 
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ANALYSIS 
When a discovery order “depart[s] from the essential 
requirements of the law and results in material injury for the 
remainder of the case that cannot be corrected on appeal,” relief by 
way of certiorari review may be granted.  Paton v. GEICO Gen. Ins. 
Co., 190 So. 3d 1047, 1052 (Fla. 2016).  “But not every erroneous 
discovery order creates certiorari jurisdiction because some orders 
are subject to adequate redress by plenary appeal from a final 
judgment.”  Allstate Ins. Co. v. Langston, 655 So. 2d 91, 94 (Fla. 
1995) (citing Martin-Johnson, Inc. v. Savage, 509 So. 2d 1097, 1100 
(Fla. 1987)).  Moreover, a “departure from the essential 
requirements of the law . . . is something more than a simple legal 
error.”  Allstate Ins. Co. v. Kaklamanos, 843 So. 2d 885, 889 (Fla. 
2003).  It requires “a violation of a clearly established principle of 
law.”  Id.   
“[C]learly established law” can derive from a variety of 
legal sources, including recent controlling case law, rules 
of court, statutes, and constitutional law.  Thus, in 
addition to case law dealing with the same issue of law, 
an interpretation or application of a statute, a procedural 
rule, or a constitutional provision may be the basis for 
granting certiorari review. 
 
Id. at 890. 
 
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Here, the Fourth District concluded that the discovery issue in 
Worley was distinguishable.  See Dodgen, 281 So. 3d at 491 
(“Worley was not broadly written to cover discovery sought from the 
defense side of a case.”).  We agree.  Worley thus cannot form the 
basis for concluding that the discovery order at issue departs from 
“clearly established law.”  Kaklamanos, 843 So. 2d at 890. 
As noted above, Worley addressed a narrowly framed certified 
conflict question: “whether the attorney-client privilege protects a 
party from being required to disclose that his or her attorney 
referred the party to a physician for treatment.”  Worley, 228 So. 3d 
at 20.  That is obviously not the issue presented in this case.  
Although Worley went beyond that narrow issue, and although 
Worley’s use of the term “a party” might suggest that the decision 
could apply to both sides in litigation, Worley was clearly decided in 
a plaintiff-only context.  Indeed, Worley repeatedly referenced 
“treating physicians” and “treatment.”  See, e.g., id. at 24 (“[T]he 
conflict issue before this Court [is] whether the attorney-client 
privilege precludes defense counsel from asking a plaintiff whether 
his or her attorney referred the plaintiff to a physician for 
treatment.” (emphasis added)).  And Worley turned in part on the 
 
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notion that “treating physicians” are distinguishable from “hired” 
experts.  Id. at 23.  Worley thus addressed a specific type of plaintiff 
witness that has no mirror image on the defense side.  Even if it can 
be argued that a compulsory medical examiner should be viewed as 
analogous to a treating physician, nothing in Worley suggests its 
decision was intended to apply to any witnesses other than those 
“attempting to make [their] patient[s] well.”  Id. (alterations in 
original) (quoting Frantz v. Golebiewski, 407 So. 2d 283, 285 (Fla. 
3d DCA 1981)).  In that regard, Worley stands in stark contrast to 
Elkins v. Syken, 672 So. 2d 517 (Fla. 1996), in which this Court 
expressly noted that its holding limiting the scope of discovery of 
financial information from the defense medical expert “affect[ed] 
both plaintiffs and defendants alike” and was “in no way intended 
to favor either plaintiffs or defendants.”  Id. at 522. 
Because Worley in no way speaks to the discoverability of the 
financial relationship between a defendant’s nonparty insurer and 
the defendant’s experts, the discovery order at issue here did not 
violate a “principle of law” that was “clearly established” by Worley.  
Kaklamanos, 843 So. 2d at 889.  The Fourth District thus correctly 
concluded that Worley did not support granting certiorari relief. 
 
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Notably, the Fourth District also cited the Fifth District’s 
decision in Springer, a decision that is actually on point.  There, the 
defendant in an automobile negligence case sought “a writ of 
certiorari to review a discovery order compelling him to answer 
interrogatories regarding the relationship between his trial expert 
and his liability insurer.”  Springer, 769 So. 2d at 1069 (emphasis 
added).  In denying the defendant’s petition, Springer quite 
reasonably concluded that Boecher was applicable, even though the 
interrogatories at issue sought “information regarding the 
relationship between [the defendant’s] insurer, a nonparty, and the 
expert, whereas in Boecher, the insurer was a party.”  Id.  Springer 
explained: 
Where an insurer provides a defense for its insured 
and is acting as the insured’s agent, the insurer’s 
relationship to an expert is discoverable from the 
insured.  To hold otherwise would render Boecher 
meaningless in all but a small class of cases.  Similarly, a 
defendant may question a plaintiff about any relationship 
between his or her attorney and the plaintiff’s trial 
expert.  In both cases, the information sought is relevant 
to the witness’s bias and will enhance the truth-seeking 
function and fairness of the trial, as intended by Boecher.  
 
Id.  Springer thus held that the financial relationship between a 
defendant’s nonparty insurer and the defense experts is 
 
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discoverable, while additionally concluding that the discovery rules 
should be applied evenhandedly to both parties. 
Dodgen argues that the reasoning of Springer is “no longer 
valid” after Worley.  But even if Worley might be said to undermine 
some of the language in Springer, the issue in Springer was wholly 
distinct from the issue in Worley.  The issue in Springer was, 
however, the same issue presented in this case.  Therefore, the 
circuit court here did not depart from the essential requirements of 
law in permitting discovery related to the financial relationship 
between Dodgen’s insurer and defense experts.  Indeed, the circuit 
court’s ruling was dictated by law that was binding on the circuit 
court, namely the rule articulated by the district court in Springer.3  
And we see no basis for revisiting the rule laid down by the Springer 
court. 
Although the Fourth District reached the correct result in 
denying Dodgen’s petition, we recognize the concern about what the 
 
 
3.  The fact that Springer controlled the circuit court’s ruling 
in this case may well explain why the Fourth District declined to 
address any of Dodgen’s other arguments.  We similarly do not 
address those arguments. 
 
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Fourth District described as a post-Worley uneven playing field 
skewed in favor of plaintiffs when it comes to the discovery of 
financial-bias relationships between the parties’ medical experts 
and nonparty representatives.  But whether Worley was wrongly 
decided or whether some other factor has caused the purportedly 
uneven playing field, is not properly before us.  The holding of 
Worley should be reexamined only in a case in which it is actually 
at issue.  And here, as the Fourth District acknowledged, Worley is 
not applicable. 
CONCLUSION 
 
We answer the rephrased question in the negative.  Because 
the trial court’s order permitting discovery related to the financial 
relationship between Dodgen’s insurer and defense experts was 
consistent with established law, we agree with the Fourth District 
that the trial court did not depart from the essential requirements 
of the law in denying Dodgen’s motion for protective order.  
Accordingly, we approve the result reached by the Fourth District. 
 
It is so ordered. 
 
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CANADY, C.J., and LAWSON, MUÑIZ, COURIEL, and 
GROSSHANS, JJ., concur. 
LABARGA, J., concurs in result. 
POLSTON, J., dissents with an opinion. 
 
NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO FILE REHEARING MOTION 
AND, IF FILED, DETERMINED. 
 
POLSTON, J., dissenting. 
 
As explained in my dissenting opinion in Younkin v. 
Blackwelder, No. SC19-385 (Fla. Oct. 14, 2021), I would recede 
from Worley v. Central Florida Young Men’s Christian Ass’n, 228 
So. 3d 18 (Fla. 2017), and require disclosures equally from plaintiffs 
and defendants.  Accordingly, I respectfully dissent. 
Application for Review of the Decision of the District Court of Appeal 
Certified Great Public Importance 
 
 
Fourth District – Case No. 4D19-1010 
 
 
(Broward County) 
 
Kansas R. Gooden, Miami, Florida, and Kevin D. Franz, Boyd & 
Jenerette, PA, Boca Raton, Florida, 
 
 
for Petitioner 
 
Douglas F. Eaton of Eaton & Wolk, PL, Miami, Florida, 
 
 
for Respondent 
 
William W. Large of Florida Justice Reform Institute, Tallahassee, 
Florida; and Jason Gonzalez and Amber Stoner Nunnally of Shutts 
& Bowen LLP, Tallahassee, Florida, 
 
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for Amici Curiae Chamber of Commerce of the United States of 
America and Florida Justice Reform Institute 
 
John Hamilton of Law Office of John Hamilton of Tampa, P.A., San 
Antonio, Florida; and Patrick A. Brennan of HD Law Partners, P.A., 
Tampa, Florida, 
 
 
for Amici Curiae Dr. Michael Foley and Dr. John Shim 
 
Bryan S. Gowdy of Florida Justice Association, Jacksonville, 
Florida, 
 
 
for Amicus Curiae Florida Justice Association