BEST PRODUCTS, INC. v. Superior Court

INTRODUCTION

This writ proceeding involves a discovery dispute in commercial litigation between plaintiff Granatelli Motorsports, Inc. and defendant Best Products, Inc. The operative pleadings are the complaint and cross-complaint.

Plaintiff served a set of requests for inspection and production of documents and propounded a set of interrogatories. Defendant responded with, inter alia, boilerplate objections of attorney-client privilege and work product privilege. Plaintiff brought motions to compel and to preclude defendant from making any further objections. At the hearing on the motions, the court essentially held that defendant’s failure to produce a privilege log resulted in the waiver of its right to object based upon privilege and granted the motions to compel. A minute order filed by the trial court several days later recast its order by stating it had overruled the privilege objections because defendant had failed to substantiate them.

This petition by defendant followed. We issued an alternative writ because interlocutory review is appropriate when a petition alleges a discovery order will result in disclosure of information protected by the attorney-client…