Paul E. Jones v. Florida East Coast Railway, LLC

N/A

OUTCOME: Settlement

This case involved an employee of the railroad defendant who claimed he was injured in the course and scope of his employment. The most salient issue is that the employee claimed that my client had ph ... otographic evidence which, even though it was clearly work product, should nevertheless be produced over the protection of work product due to his substantial need and inability to obtain the equivalent. Our client argued that he had not shown by any evidence that he met these factors and that such evidence should be required to overcome work product. The trial court disagreed, and ordered the work product photographs produced. Our firm appealed on behalf of the client to the First District Court of Appeal, where I and co-counsel Eric Leach petitioned for certiorari to quash the lower court's ruling. Our argument was based upon established appellate authority that required such an evidentiary showing before work product would be compelled. Plaintiff's opposition was that the evidence taken on the day of the accident clearly could not be obtained due to changed conditions at the scene of the incident. The appellate court disagreed, and reversed the trial court's ruling and remanded for further proceedings. I submit this case was the first in its appellate jurisdiction to acknowledge the evidentiary threshold required for an opposing party to overcome the protection afforded to work product/