Opinion ID: 2403862
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Discovery Order

Text: The wife contends that our September 29, 1992, disposition of the earlier appeal taken by the husband required the trial court to undertake an in camera inspection of the files of Stephen Gray and Charles Bruce in order to inquire thoroughly in regards to any knowledge that ex-husband's counsel might possess in regard to ex-husband's secretion of substantial assets from this jurisdiction. We believe the trial court, having correctly determined that the husband had informally discharged Gray as his lawyer and that Gray should be permitted formally to withdraw, was correct in concluding that it lacked authority to order an in camera inspection of documents in the control of persons who were not parties to the proceeding. Assuming such documents exist, the proper way to obtain them from Mr. Bruce and Mr. Gray is by a subpoena duces tecum. [9] If the person subpoenaed to produce documents resists production by claiming that the documents are privileged, [10] the court may then order an in camera inspection of the documents in dispute and quash the subpoena with respect to any documents protected by a valid privilege. [11] The court may of course enforce a subpoena by contempt. At an earlier proceeding in this case, the trial court had issued an order authorizing the wife's counsel to serve Mr. Bruce with a subpoena duces tecum and to depose him with reference to the creation of the alleged trust on the Isle of Man. For reasons that do not appear in the record, that subpoena was never served. Instead, the wife attempted to circumvent the rules by asking the trial court to (1) compel both Mr. Bruce and Mr. Gray, for whom a subpoena duces tecum had not even been authorized, much less served, to produce documents and (2) conduct an in camera inspection of any documents produced. The trial court correctly declined to issue such an order. [12] Even if the trial court could be said to have had discretion to circumvent the court's discovery rules in the interest of expediting the wife's quest for satisfaction of her judgment, we would not say that the denial of the wife's motion was an abuse of that discretion. See Plough v. National Academy of Sciences, 530 A.2d 1152, 1156 (D.C.1987) (decision to allow discovery is left to sound discretion of trial court and will not be disturbed on appeal absent abuse of discretion). Assuming again that the putative documents exist, it was certainly reasonable for the trial court to insist on a subpoena so that the issue of the attorney-client privilege, vel non, could be decided in an adversarial proceeding in which the party asserting the privilege had an opportunity to be heard before production of documents arguably covered by the privilege.