Court Opinion

ID: 9762523
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:25:52.36159+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:35.255689
License: Public Domain

OSBORN, Chief Justice,
concurring.
This Court in Phelps Dodge Refining Corporation v. Marsh, 733 S.W.2d 359, 361 (Tex.App.—El Paso 1987), attempted, for the first time in this State, to set some guidelines by which a trial court could realistically determine whether a party had good cause to anticipate a lawsuit. We said:
Such manifestations could include commencing an investigation of the accident, retaining an attorney or private investigator and, of course, making a claim or demand for damages.
The court rejected a good faith belief, based on past experience.
That standard, whether right or wrong, did receive some acceptance. Texaco Refining & Marketing, Inc. v. Sanderson, 739 S.W.2d 493 (Tex.App.—Beaumont 1987); H. E. Butt Grocery Company v. Williams, 751 S.W.2d 554 (Tex.App.—San Antonio 1988); Mole v. Millard, 762 S.W.2d 251 (Tex.App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 1988); Enterprise Products Company v. Sanderson, 759 S.W.2d 174 (Tex.App.—Beaumont 1988). Contra: Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc. v. Heard, 774 S.W.2d 316 (Tex.App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 1989).
In Flores v. Fourth Court of Appeals, 777 S.W.2d 38 (Tex.1989), the Court held that filing a claim with the Industrial Accident Board was not a basis for good cause to anticipate litigation and thus discovery was permitted. Tex.R.Civ.P. 166b(3)(d) provides exemptions for party communications and includes communications made subsequent to the occurrence or transaction upon which the suit is based, and IN ANTICIPATION of the prosecution or defense of the claims made a part of the pending litigation. (Emphasis added). In the Flores case, the city made the tactical mistake of contending that a claim before the Board constituted litigation. What would have been the results had the contention been that the claim before the Board was only a step toward litigation in a trial court? Probably the same. I believe the better rule would continue to be that investigation after a claim is made, whether by a telephone call seeking damages, letter from an attorney, a filing with the IAB, or however, is privileged, not because a claim is litigation, but because the investigation after the claim is made is in anticipation of litigation. Certainly, most claims before the Board do not end up in a trial court, but there is no other way to get to the trial court and to believe that work done at that stage cannot be in anticipation of litigation makes little sense. The Court in Flores did not and probably did not need *774to mention the decision in the Marsh case, but the net effect of its holding is to reject the standard set for a realistic determination of good cause in that case.
But, this will all come to naught, because we will soon realize that at the present rate and cost of discovery, “trial by ambush” was not so bad after all.