11.11.11

Hi there, I assume you're in the office because your kids are home from school and driving you crazy.

Or is that just me?

Rump has a nice post on the reason I got this tweet from @MiamiDadeCourts earlier this morning:

All Miami-Dade Courts and Clerk of Courts' offices closed on Friday, Nov. 11th, in observance of Veteran's Day: http://bit.ly/tG4het

So the Court can tweet but I still have to send a runner downtown to file something?

In other news, the Florida Supreme Court has limited discovery in first-party bad faith actions and held that you can't get at attorney-client privileged materials:

Therefore, although we held in Ruiz that attorney work product in first-party bad faith actions was discoverable, this holding does not extend to attorney-client privileged communications. Consequently, when an insured party brings a bad faith claim against its insurer, the insured may not discover those privileged communications that occurred between the insurer and its counsel during the underlying action.

This seems pretty obvious, no?

The Court, however, does allow for some fightin' space:

Although we conclude that the attorney-client privilege applies, we recognize that cases may arise where an insurer has hired an attorney to both investigate the underlying claim and render legal advice. Thus, the materials requested by the opposing party may implicate both the work product doctrine and the attorney-client privilege. Where a claim of privilege is asserted, the trial court should conduct an in-camera inspection to determine whether the sought-after materials are truly protected by the attorney-client privilege. If the trial court determines that the investigation performed by the attorney resulted in the preparation of materials that are required to be disclosed pursuant to Ruiz and did not involve the rendering of legal advice, then that material is discoverable.

 Have fun with that, trial judges!