IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF FLORIDA

FIFTH DISTRICT

NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO

FILE MOTION FOR REHEARING AND

DISPOSITION THEREOF IF FILED

BEACON PARK PHASE II HOMEOWNERS

ASSOCIATION, INC.,

Petitioner,

v. Case No. 5D22-1077

LT Case No. 2016-CC-000443-O

EAGLE VISTA EQUITIES, LLC,

Respondent.

________________________________/

Opinion filed July 8, 2022

Petition for Certiorari Review of Order

from the County Court for Orange County,

Amy J. Carter, Judge.

Scott D. Newsom, of HR Law, P.A., 

Winter Park, for Petitioner.

Margaret E. Kozan, of Margaret E. 

Kozan, P.A., Winter Park, and August 

J. Stanton, III, of Gasdick Stanton 

Early, P.A., Orlando, for Respondent. 

LAMBERT, C.J.
2

Petitioner, Beacon Park Phase II Homeowners Association, Inc.

(“Beacon Park”), seeks certiorari review of an order granting Respondent’s, 

Eagle Vista Equities, LLC (“Eagle Vista”), motion to compel the production 

of 

any and all statements, bills, and invoices for legal 

services provided on . . . behalf [of Beacon Park] in 

this action . . . includ[ing] . . . the corresponding hours 

and hourly rates charged for each entry. 

For the following reasons, we dismiss the petition.

Beacon Park was the unsuccessful defendant below in an action 

brought against it by Eagle Vista for declaratory judgment and breach of 

contract.1 The trial court later granted Eagle Vista’s motion for an award of 

attorney’s fees and court costs and directed the parties to coordinate a 

hearing to determine the amount of the fees and costs. 

Eagle Vista then filed a request for production of documents under 

Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.350 seeking the aforementioned 

statements, bills, and invoices that Beacon Park received from its counsel

for services rendered in the case. Beacon Park objected to the requested 

production based on relevancy and attorney-client privilege; albeit its 

1 The final judgment entered in favor of Eagle Vista was affirmed by 

this court without opinion. Beacon Park Phase II Homeowners Ass’n v. 

Eagle Vista Equities, LLC, 325 So. 3d 1287 (Fla. 5th DCA 2021).
3

counsel prepared and submitted a document that simply stated that counsel

had expended an aggregate of 133.6 hours in the trial court and appellate 

proceeding and that he charged Beacon Park at a rate of $240 per hour for 

his services. Eagle Vista then moved to compel the actual invoices or 

statements, to which Beacon Park filed a response in opposition. After a 

hearing, the trial court orally found the requested records to be relevant but 

entered an unelaborated order that granted Eagle Vista’s motion and

directed that Beacon Park’s counsel’s billing invoices be produced.

Beacon Park asks that we issue a writ of certiorari quashing this order, 

asserting that the order fails to adequately protect attorney-client privileged 

communications and that the information sought is not relevant to Eagle 

Vista’s pending claim for attorney’s fees. To be entitled to this relief, Beacon 

Park must show that this “discovery order departs from the essential 

requirements of law, causing material injury to a petitioner throughout the 

remainder of the proceedings below and effectively leaving no adequate 

remedy on plenary appeal.” Montanez v. Publix Super Mkts., Inc., 135 So. 

3d 510, 512 (Fla. 5th DCA 2014) (citing Allstate Ins. v. Langston, 655 So. 2d 

91, 94 (Fla. 1995)). To that end, “[a]n order that erroneously compels a party 

to produce privileged information is a classic example of a discovery order 
4

subject to certiorari review because the harm caused by the disclosure of 

privileged information is irreparable.” Id. (citing Langston, 655 So. 2d at 94).

In Paton v. GEICO General Insurance, 190 So. 3d 1047, 1052 (Fla. 

2016), the Florida Supreme Court determined that “the billing records of 

opposing counsel are relevant to the issue of reasonableness of time 

expended in a claim for attorney’s fees, and their discovery falls within the 

discretion of the trial court when the fees are contested.”2

 Accordingly, we 

find that Beacon Park has not overcome the “high hurdle”3 for certiorari relief 

based on its argument that its counsel’s billing records are not relevant.

As to the issue of whether the billing records of opposing counsel are 

nondiscoverable based on attorney-client privilege, the Paton court also 

wrote that “the entirety of the[se] billing records are not privileged, and where 

the trial court specifically states that any privileged information may be 

redacted, the plaintiff should not be required to make an additional special 

2 We find no merit to one of Beacon Park’s arguments advanced here 

that the Florida Supreme Court intended to limit its holding in Paton regarding 

disclosure of the billing records of opposing counsel solely to claims for 

attorney’s fees brought against insurance companies under section 624.155 

and 627.428, Florida Statutes. 

3 See People’s Tr. Ins. v. Foster, 333 So. 3d 773, 774 (Fla. 1st DCA 

2022) (observing that “[c]ertorari petitions seeking relief from discovery 

orders face a high hurdle” (citing McCloud v. Tackett, 308 So. 3d 687, 688–

89 (Fla. 1st DCA 2020))).
5

showing to obtain the remaining relevant, non-privileged information.” 190

So. 3d at 1052.

Thus, there is no categorical rule that all information contained in an 

opposing party’s attorney’s billing records, such as those requested by Eagle 

Vista in the instant case, is privileged. Admittedly, no mention was made by 

the trial court here that possible privileged information in the billing 

statements, such as mental impressions or opinions of counsel, should be 

redacted. Cf. Finol v. Finol, 869 So. 2d 666, 666 (Fla. 4th DCA 2004) (“If 

th[e] billing information [of counsel] contained descriptions of services 

rendered which would reveal the mental impressions and opinions of 

[opposing] counsel, that information should be redacted as privileged; 

however, the remaining information is not privileged and therefore 

discoverable.” (citation omitted)). 

However, the transcript contained in our record of the hearing on the 

motion to compel shows that no request for any redactions to the requested

billing records was ever made by Beacon Park’s counsel, even after the court 

announced its ruling that the billing records were relevant and should be 

produced. Furthermore, in his written response to the motion to compel filed 

below, which is also part of our record, Beacon Park’s counsel separately 

prepared and provided a copy of a “detailed billing history” that gave an 
6

itemized list of the 133.6 hours that he expended in the entire case, with a 

narrative next to each billing entry explaining the specific services rendered 

for each. There are no redactions in this document; nor, for that matter, does 

it appear that any redactions would be required as none of the entries shows

any mental impressions or opinions of counsel. 

Under these circumstances, and though the trial court did not directly 

address the claim of privilege in its order, we conclude that Beacon Park has 

not sufficiently shown that it has or will suffer irreparable harm resulting from 

the subject discovery order. We therefore dismiss its petition for lack of 

jurisdiction. See Bared & Co. v. McGuire, 670 So. 2d 153, 157 (Fla. 4th DCA 

1996) (explaining that dismissal, rather than denial, is the proper disposition 

of a petition for writ of certiorari when the appellate court determines that 

there has been an insufficient showing of irreparable harm).

PETITION DISMISSED.4

EVANDER and WALLIS, JJ., concur.

4 Lastly, we note that while Eagle Vista’s response to the petition for 

writ of certiorari argued that, among other things, Beacon Park’s petition 

should be denied for failing to establish the requisite irreparable harm, its 

counsel nevertheless offered that “any portions of the [billing] documents 

sought that contain truly privileged substantive information may be 

redacted.” We commend this professionalism.