Nelson v. Superior Court

Donald Eric Nelson, plaintiff in the underlying personal injury action, sought discovery of a number of California Highway Patrol (CHP) accident investigation reports. His several attempts to obtain the reports or information from the reports having been denied, he petitioned this court for a writ of mandate to require the Riverside Superior Court to compel the requested discovery. This court denied the petition without opinion. However, the California Supreme Court granted a petition for review and retransferred the matter to this court with directions to issue an alternative writ to be heard by this court and ordered on calendar. We complied with the Supreme Court’s directions and the matter is now before us for decision. We have concluded the petition for writ of mandate was properly denied in the first instance and accordingly deny issuance of a peremptory writ.

Facts

The record made in support of the writ is quite unsatisfactory. We are not furnished even with a copy of plaintiff’s complaint and most of the history of plaintiff’s first two attempts to obtain the CHP investigative reports is entirely lacking. Nevertheless, we attempt to state the pertinent facts as…