Lipton

In this bad faith action against his professional liability insurer, the petitioner Howard Lipton seeks a writ of mandate compelling the trial court to require the real party in interest, Lawyers’ Mutual Insurance Company (LMIC), to produce certain records relating to liability “reserves” which may have been established in a malpractice action brought against Lipton, together with “corresponding reinsurance records.” The trial court, after conducting an in camera inspection of the requested records, denied Lipton’s discovery request, stating that “it does not appear that the disclosure of setting reserves is likely to lead to [the discovery of] admissible evidence,” and that the “percentage of its risk that [LMIC] assigns to other carriers is of no moment.”

After a review of the record, we conclude that the trial court erred in denying Lipton any discovery as to the requested reserve and reinsurance documents. We hold, at least for purposes of discovery (Code Civ. Proc., § 2017, subd. (a)), loss reserve information cannot be deemed, a priori, irrelevant. Such information may well lead to the discovery of evidence admissible on the issues raised by Lipton in his bad faith…