1998
Yeazell, pp. 39-41
Facts: American Medical Group and Midtown Health Care treated
some plaintiffs in a personal injury case.
The defendant in the case is trying to use discovery to get some
information from them. AMG and MHC
objected to some of the requests as violation privilege and being too
burdensome. The magistrate said that
most of the discovery was okay. AMG and
MHC objected.
Issue: Is the information at issue discoverable?
Rule: Discovery includes not only information admissible at
trial, but also inadmissible information that could lead to other
information that would be admissible at trial. Discovery can be flexibly limited by
considerations of both efficiency and fairness at the discretion of the trial
judge.
Analysis: The court makes different findings on two different
pieces of information sought by the defendants.
The list of the number of
patients referred to AMG and MHC by certain lawyers was ruled discoverable by
the magistrate, and the judge here finds that’s okay, except the defendants
have to help pay for it because it may be expensive and time-consuming.
On the other hand, a printout
of AMG and MHC’s complete patient list is overruled as off-limits by this
judge.
Conclusion: The defendants must pay half the costs of making a
list of clients referred to AMG and MHC by the lawyers, and they may not get
the list of all of AMG and MHC’s current patients.