U.S. Sugar Corp. v. Estate of Mullins
U.S. Sugar Corp. v. Estate of Mullins , 211 So.3d 110 (Fla. 4th DCA 2017) This decision deals with an estate's attempt to seek discovery from a non-party to the probate action. In this instance, the non-party is the entity which owns the location on which the decedent died. The estate served a subpoena duces tecum upon the non-party seeking documents relating to its investigation of the fatal accident which killed the decedent. The Court held as follows: (1) The discovery sought information not reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence in the probate proceeding . At the time of serving the discovery, the estate had not filed a wrongful death action. Because the underlying probate petition was devoid of any allegations upon which to premise discovery upon the non-party, the Court agreed with the non-party that the subpoena was nothing more than a fishing expedition seeking information which might give rise to a potential wrongful death actio