Rubin on Probate Litigation

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 ...

Lyons v. Lyons : 162 So. 3d 212 (Fla. 4th DCA 2015), 2015 WL 543106 While this opinion came about because of a trust contest among family members, the decision relates to broader principles of discovery relevant for all litigators.  The case centered around a privilege objection to the production of documents from the trust accountant, a nonparty, pursuant to Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.351.  The Court held that under the amended Rule 1.351, an objection does not automatically trigger a deposition pursuant to Rule 1.310, and instead, the court has the ability to rule on the objection.  A court is required to rule on any claim of privilege, and should conduct an in camera inspection prior to production of the privileged documents.  The trial court has discretion to fashion the process to deal with the production of documents, and here, where the trial court entered an order providing a procedure for the accountant to gather the documents, for review of the ...