IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF FLORIDA
FIFTH DISTRICT
NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO
FILE MOTION FOR REHEARING AND
DISPOSITION THEREOF IF FILED
BEACON PARK PHASE II HOMEOWNERS
ASSOCIATION, INC.,
Petitioner,
v. Case No. 5D22-1077
LT Case No. 2016-CC-000443-O
EAGLE VISTA EQUITIES, LLC,
Respondent.
________________________________/
Opinion filed July 8, 2022
Petition for Certiorari Review of Order
from the County Court for Orange County,
Amy J. Carter, Judge.
Scott D. Newsom, of HR Law, P.A.,
Winter Park, for Petitioner.
Margaret E. Kozan, of Margaret E.
Kozan, P.A., Winter Park, and August
J. Stanton, III, of Gasdick Stanton
Early, P.A., Orlando, for Respondent.
LAMBERT, C.J.
Petitioner, Beacon Park Phase II Homeowners Association, Inc.
(“Beacon Park”), seeks certiorari review of an order granting Respondent’s,
Eagle Vista Equities, LLC (“Eagle Vista”), motion to compel the production
of
any and all statements, bills, and invoices for legal
services provided on . . . behalf [of Beacon Park] in
this action . . . includ[ing] . . . the corresponding hours
and hourly rates charged for each entry.
For the following reasons, we dismiss the petition.
Beacon Park was the unsuccessful defendant below in an action
brought against it by Eagle Vista for declaratory judgment and breach of
contract. 1 The trial court later granted Eagle Vista’s motion for an award of
attorney’s fees and court costs and directed the parties to coordinate a
hearing to determine the amount of the fees and costs.
Eagle Vista then filed a request for production of documents under
Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.350 seeking the aforementioned
statements, bills, and invoices that Beacon Park received from its counsel
for services rendered in the case. Beacon Park objected to the requested
production based on relevancy and attorney-client privilege; albeit its
1
The final judgment entered in favor of Eagle Vista was affirmed by
this court without opinion. Beacon Park Phase II Homeowners Ass’n v.
Eagle Vista Equities, LLC,
325 So. 3d 1287 (Fla. 5th DCA 2021).
2
counsel prepared and submitted a document that simply stated that counsel
had expended an aggregate of 133.6 hours in the trial court and appellate
proceeding and that he charged Beacon Park at a rate of $240 per hour for
his services. Eagle Vista then moved to compel the actual invoices or
statements, to which Beacon Park filed a response in opposition. After a
hearing, the trial court orally found the requested records to be relevant but
entered an unelaborated order that granted Eagle Vista’s motion and
directed that Beacon Park’s counsel’s billing invoices be produced.
Beacon Park asks that we issue a writ of certiorari quashing this order,
asserting that the order fails to adequately protect attorney-client privileged
communications and that the information sought is not relevant to Eagle
Vista’s pending claim for attorney’s fees. To be entitled to this relief, Beacon
Park must show that this “discovery order departs from the essential
requirements of law, causing material injury to a petitioner throughout the
remainder of the proceedings below and effectively leaving no adequate
remedy on plenary appeal.” Montanez v. Publix Super Mkts., Inc.,
135 So.
3d 510, 512 (Fla. 5th DCA 2014) (citing Allstate Ins. v. Langston,
655 So. 2d
91, 94 (Fla. 1995)). To that end, “[a]n order that erroneously compels a party
to produce privileged information is a classic example of a discovery order
3
subject to certiorari review because the harm caused by the disclosure of
privileged information is irreparable.”
Id. (citing Langston,
655 So. 2d at 94).
In Paton v. GEICO General Insurance,
190 So. 3d 1047, 1052 (Fla.
2016), the Florida Supreme Court determined that “the billing records of
opposing counsel are relevant to the issue of reasonableness of time
expended in a claim for attorney’s fees, and their discovery falls within the
discretion of the trial court when the fees are contested.”2 Accordingly, we
find that Beacon Park has not overcome the “high hurdle”3 for certiorari relief
based on its argument that its counsel’s billing records are not relevant.
As to the issue of whether the billing records of opposing counsel are
nondiscoverable based on attorney-client privilege, the Paton court also
wrote that “the entirety of the[se] billing records are not privileged, and where
the trial court specifically states that any privileged information may be
redacted, the plaintiff should not be required to make an additional special
2
We find no merit to one of Beacon Park’s arguments advanced here
that the Florida Supreme Court intended to limit its holding in Paton regarding
disclosure of the billing records of opposing counsel solely to claims for
attorney’s fees brought against insurance companies under section 624.155
and 627.428, Florida Statutes.
3
See People’s Tr. Ins. v. Foster,
333 So. 3d 773, 774 (Fla. 1st DCA
2022) (observing that “[c]ertorari petitions seeking relief from discovery
orders face a high hurdle” (citing McCloud v. Tackett,
308 So. 3d 687, 688–
89 (Fla. 1st DCA 2020))).
4
showing to obtain the remaining relevant, non-privileged information.” 190
So. 3d at 1052.
Thus, there is no categorical rule that all information contained in an
opposing party’s attorney’s billing records, such as those requested by Eagle
Vista in the instant case, is privileged. Admittedly, no mention was made by
the trial court here that possible privileged information in the billing
statements, such as mental impressions or opinions of counsel, should be
redacted. Cf. Finol v. Finol,
869 So. 2d 666, 666 (Fla. 4th DCA 2004) (“If
th[e] billing information [of counsel] contained descriptions of services
rendered which would reveal the mental impressions and opinions of
[opposing] counsel, that information should be redacted as privileged;
however, the remaining information is not privileged and therefore
discoverable.” (citation omitted)).
However, the transcript contained in our record of the hearing on the
motion to compel shows that no request for any redactions to the requested
billing records was ever made by Beacon Park’s counsel, even after the court
announced its ruling that the billing records were relevant and should be
produced. Furthermore, in his written response to the motion to compel filed
below, which is also part of our record, Beacon Park’s counsel separately
prepared and provided a copy of a “detailed billing history” that gave an
5
itemized list of the 133.6 hours that he expended in the entire case, with a
narrative next to each billing entry explaining the specific services rendered
for each. There are no redactions in this document; nor, for that matter, does
it appear that any redactions would be required as none of the entries shows
any mental impressions or opinions of counsel.
Under these circumstances, and though the trial court did not directly
address the claim of privilege in its order, we conclude that Beacon Park has
not sufficiently shown that it has or will suffer irreparable harm resulting from
the subject discovery order. We therefore dismiss its petition for lack of
jurisdiction. See Bared & Co. v. McGuire,
670 So. 2d 153, 157 (Fla. 4th DCA
1996) (explaining that dismissal, rather than denial, is the proper disposition
of a petition for writ of certiorari when the appellate court determines that
there has been an insufficient showing of irreparable harm).
PETITION DISMISSED. 4
EVANDER and WALLIS, JJ., concur.
4
Lastly, we note that while Eagle Vista’s response to the petition for
writ of certiorari argued that, among other things, Beacon Park’s petition
should be denied for failing to establish the requisite irreparable harm, its
counsel nevertheless offered that “any portions of the [billing] documents
sought that contain truly privileged substantive information may be
redacted.” We commend this professionalism.
6
