Mead Reinsurance Co. v. Superior Court

In these original proceedings, petitioners, who are defendants and insurers in the underlying “bad-faith” action, brought against them by the insured plaintiff, City of Laguna Beach (City), are challenging the respondent court’s order which granted City’s motion to compel discovery. The order requires production of defendant Mead’s “claims files relating to every claim similar to the claim at issue. . . made during the period starting from January 1, 1979, and extending to the present [June 4, 1985] . . ."

Defendants, in asserting their challenge in these proceedings to so-called Plaintiff’s Request for Production of Documents No. 5,” which provided the predicate for the quoted order, argue first that the trial court abused its discretion in “failing to protect petitioners from an overbroad and oppressive request for production.” While defendants did not at any stage in the trial court seek a protective order, City yet appears to agree with the foregoing characterization of the principal issue presented by the petition.

The second prong of defendants’ challenge to the order is that it “failed to follow procedures authorized by the California Supreme Court for this…