Melendrez

A bankrupt corporation which purportedly only existed as a shell through which personal injury claims were passed on to its insurer for resolution was sued for personal injury. Pursuant to its reorganization plan, the action was submitted to its insurers, who provided a defense. When discovery was propounded to the corporation, the corporation’s attorney (who had been provided by the insurers) filed substantive responses to the discovery, but represented to the court that the responses could not be verified, as the corporation had no officer, director, employee, or agent who could verify the discovery responses. The personal injury plaintiff challenged the sufficiency of the discovery responses. The trial court agreed that, under the circumstances, no individual existed who could verify the responses, and, at the corporation’s request, simply deemed them verified. The plaintiff filed the instant writ petition, challenging the trial court’s order.

As we shall discuss, the law provides that an attorney can verify responses on behalf of a corporation, although such an act constitutes a limited waiver of the attorney-client and work product privileges with respect to the…