Court Opinion

ID: 9767692
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 05:23:48.33596+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:32.439538
License: Public Domain

*193Mr. Justice Calvert,
joined by Justices Walker and GREENHILL, concurring.
Relators seek by writ of mandamus to compel Judge Tunks to vacate or revise two orders. The first is the order entered on November 5, 1958 by and under the terms of which relators were required to produce before the court the records, writings and information enumerated in the majority opinion as items (1), (2), (3), (4), (6) and (7). The second is the order made in open court on November 12, 1958 by which relator Kelley was directed to deliver Mrs. Crane’s 1950 income tax return to Glenney’s counsel for examination and copying. I agree that the November 5 order should not be vacated and that the November 12 order should be, but I do not agree with some of the broad language and incidental holdings in the majority opinion.
Relators contend that the trial court abused its discretion in entering the order of November 5, 1958 directing the production of the various documents in court when there was no pleading, either in the discovery proceeding or in the main suit, that the documents contained evidence relevant and material to the plaintiff’s claims, without adequately protecting Mrs. Crane’s right against improper inspection. It is then argued that written pleading showing relevancy and materiality of the documents was a necessary predicate for the order and that no such written pleading had been filed. The majority have agreed with that argument. They state: “* * * we hold that relevancy and materiality must be shown in the written application or petition asking for the bill of discovery, or by the pleading in the main cause.” Having thus held that written pleadings showing relevancy and materiality are a mandatory prerequisite to an order in a discovery proceeding requiring the production of documents in court, the majority then hold, nevertheless, that the failure by Judge Tunks to require such written pleadings before entering the order of November 5 was not an abuse of discretion. The two holdings seem to me to be contradictory. I agree that the entry of the order of November 5 did not constitute an abuse of discretion, but I do not agree with the majority’s holding that written pleadings are a mandatory prerequisite to an order requiring the production of documents in court where there is no showing that the production of such documents would be unduly expensive or otherwise burdensome.
The other order which relators seek to have vacated or revised is the order directing delivery to Glenney’s counsel of *194the 1950 income tax return for examination and copying. My agreement with the majority that the entry of that order constituted an abuse of discretion is not based upon the failure of the judge to inspect the return before ordering it delivered up for examination and copying, however more cautious and desirable that might have been, but is based upon the fact that the record before us shows clearly that the return contains much information of a purely private nature which is not relevant and material to any issue in the main case. In this state of the record it would be an unreasonable invasion of Mrs. Crane’s right of privacy to require her to disclose information concerning strictly personal affairs to Glenney’s counsel.
The final draft of Glenney’s petition in the main suit raised, primarily, two issues: (1) whether his father’s deed to Mrs. Crane was voidable because it was procured by relator Kelley by fraud, coercion and duress through threats to have the grantor indicted, prosecuted and confined in the penitentiary for forgery, and, alternatively, (2) whether the deed was intended to be a mortgage to secure an indebtedness claimed by Mrs. Crane. Mrs. Crane’s answer is quite lengthy and injected a number of other issues into the case, including issues (1) that the deed dated October 15, 1940 was forged and altered by Glenney’s father and was void; (2) that the execution and delivery of the deed to Glenney’s father was procured by fraud; (3) that the deed was delivered to Glenney’s father to be held by him in trust and returned upon request to the grantor;1 (4) that in breach of his duty to disclose to Mrs. Crane his claim of interest under the 1940 deed Glenney’s father had concealed his claim and had thus enabled himself to draw some $29,000 in salary from 1950 to 1958 and was therefore estopped to claim that the 1950 deed was void, or was but a mere mortgage, or that he had any interest in the land described in the deed, and that Glenney, not being an innocent purchaser, was likewise estopped. In pleading facts surrounding the execution of the 1950 deed, Mrs. Crane also pleaded that Special Agents of the Treasury Department had advised Glennev’s father at a conference in her apartment that certain checks drawn on her account during the period of time he was attending to her business affairs had been forged.
I am satisfied that Glenney’s counsel was entitled to information contained in the 1950 income tax return relevant and *195material to the issues set out above. Relators question that a plaintiff is entitled to a discovery of documentary evidence which is only relevant and material to a defensive issue. Their doubt should be dispelled by the very wording of Rule 167, T.R.C.P., which provides for the inspection and copying of documents, etc. “which constitute or contain evidence material to any matter involved in the action.” See also “The Bill of Discovery” by Franki, 13 T.B.J. 447, Vernon’s Annotated Rules of Civil Procedure, Vol. 1, p. 503, where it is said: “The real object of the bill is to compel the opposite party to disclose such facts within his knowledge as are material to establishment of plaintiff’s cause of action, or the defendant’s defense, in order that plaintiff or defendant, as the case may be, may use this information as evidence upon the trial of the main case.” But while counsel was entitled to examine and reproduce information from the tax return bearing on all issues, he certainly was not entitled to examine and reproduce information of a highly personal and private nature which could not conceivably be relevant and material to the issues. The sworn application for writ of mandamus states that the income tax return contains information and data showing Mrs. Crane’s income from many sources, “including interest, dividends on corporate stocks, oil and gas royalties, bonuses and rentals from properties in which Plaintiff-Relator (sic) Glenney neither has nor claims any interest in the main suit.” That statement stands undenied and we may accept it as true. That information could not be relevant and material to any issue in the main suit. The return may contain much other information which is equally irrelevant and immaterial. It was a clear abuse of discretion to order that the entire return be delivered to Glenney’s counsel for examination and reproduction, and mere inspection or examination of the return by Judge Tunks before ordering it delivered to Glenney’s counsel could not make it any less so.
No question other than those above discussed is properly before us. We cannot know what ruling Judge Tunks will make with respect to the other documents and information he has ordered produced in court and we cannot by writ of mandamus supervise the exercise of discretion by Judge Tunks in his rulings on the relevancy and materiality of information contained in each of the documents he has ordered produced in court.
I agree with the majority’s holdings on the other questions discussed in the opinion.
Opinion delivered October 28, 1959.

. — These defenses are met by Glenney’s allegations that the 1940 deed was a valid deed of gift for personal services of a highly confidential nature performed by him for Mrs. Crane.