{"id":892368,"date":"2017-06-21T15:08:31","date_gmt":"2017-06-21T21:08:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/?p=892368"},"modified":"2017-06-21T15:22:34","modified_gmt":"2017-06-21T21:22:34","slug":"texas-supreme-court-rules-discoverability-insurers-attorneys-fee-bills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/texas-supreme-court-rules-discoverability-insurers-attorneys-fee-bills\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas Supreme Court Rules on Discoverability of an Insurer\u2019s Attorney\u2019s Fee Bills"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Karl A. Schulz | <a href=\"http:\/\/propertyinsurancelawobserver.com\/2017\/06\/13\/texas-supreme-court-rules-on-discoverability-of-an-insurers-attorneys-fee-bills\/\" target=\"_blank\">Property Insurance Law Observer<\/a> | June 13, 2017<\/p>\n<p>Are an insurer\u2019s attorney\u2019s fee bills discoverable in first party claims?\u00a0 In\u00a0<em>In re Nat\u2019l Lloyds Ins. Co.<\/em>, 2017 Tex. LEXIS 522 (Tex. 2017), the Texas Supreme Court considered this question in a hail MDL dispute and answered \u201cNo\u201d in a lengthy opinion.\u00a0 The opinion is the latest development in a long-running dispute over \u201cstorm chaser\u201d claims that recently gave rise to another round of tort reform in the Texas legislature.<\/p>\n<p>National Lloyds challenged the reasonableness of the insureds\u2019 attorney\u2019s fee claims, but did not compare its own fees to the insureds\u2019 or seek to recover its own fees.\u00a0 Shortly before trial, the insureds propounded sweeping discovery regarding the insurer\u2019s hourly rates, expenses, billing invoices, and indicia of payment.\u00a0 The claimants asserted that the opposing party\u2019s attorney\u2019s fees could be considered as a factor in determining a reasonable fee recovery.\u00a0 As one might expect, the insurer objected that the discovery was irrelevant and protected by attorney-client and work product privileges.\u00a0 The intermediate court of appeals sided with the insureds.<span id=\"more-1480\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>On further appeal, the Texas Supreme Court held that a request to produce all billing records invades a party\u2019s work-product privilege because billing records constitute a compilation of information that reveals an attorney\u2019s strategy and thought process.\u00a0 In what probably should have been its first point of analysis, the Texas Supreme Court also held that the requested information was irrelevant.\u00a0 The opinion reasoned that one party\u2019s billing practices do not make it any more probable that a requesting party\u2019s attorney\u2019s fees are reasonable and necessary, or unreasonable and unnecessary.\u00a0 Parties can choose to spend more or less time (and money) on tasks according to their means and strategies.\u00a0 The opinion briefly mentioned but did not dwell on the attorney\u2019s fee bills being protected by the attorney-client privilege.\u00a0 The brevity of this analysis was a function of the insurer\u2019s choice not to support this claim of privilege with sworn testimony, so the insurer apparently missed the opportunity to make some favorable law on this point.<\/p>\n<p>The Texas Supreme Court explicitly stated that it wanted to head off satellite litigation and abusive discovery practices.\u00a0 Otherwise, the justices foresaw that disputes over specific assertions of privilege, redaction, responsiveness, supplementation, and amendment would engulf the underlying dispute.<\/p>\n<p>The insurer had apparently already answered the master MDL discovery requests long before this discovery dispute arose.\u00a0 The claimants wanted to vary the scope of discovery based on the result of the first test case tried in the MDL.\u00a0 However, any other ruling by the Texas Supreme Court would have significantly undercut one of the primary points of MDL litigation: making the litigation uniform, organized, and governed by one set of rules for the life of the case.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Karl A. Schulz | Property Insurance Law Observer | June 13, 2017 Are an insurer\u2019s attorney\u2019s fee bills discoverable in first party claims?\u00a0 In\u00a0In re Nat\u2019l Lloyds Ins. Co., 2017 Tex. LEXIS 522 (Tex. 2017), the Texas Supreme Court considered this question in a hail MDL dispute and answered \u201cNo\u201d in a lengthy opinion.\u00a0 The&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/texas-supreme-court-rules-discoverability-insurers-attorneys-fee-bills\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Texas Supreme Court Rules on Discoverability of an Insurer\u2019s Attorney\u2019s Fee Bills<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[9895,528,9274],"class_list":["post-892368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-insurance-claims","tag-advise-consult","tag-attorney-fees","tag-first-party-claims","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Texas Supreme Court Rules on Discoverability of an Insurer\u2019s Attorney\u2019s Fee Bills - Advise &amp; Consult, Inc.<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Are an insurer\u2019s attorney\u2019s fee bills discoverable in first party claims? 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