Laurie Adams, of the West Palm Beach office, and Caryn Bellus, of the Miami office, with the invaluable assistance of Bretton Albrecht, of the Miami office, and Melonie Bueno, of the West Palm Beach office, teamed up to tackle an urgent situation involving privileged claim investigation materials subpoenaed in a criminal case. Our client, an insurance company, has an insured who is the subject of a criminal prosecution arising from an automobile accident. Long before the criminal trial was at issue, a claim was made under the policy issued by our client insurance company. The insurer retained investigators in anticipation of litigation arising from the auto accident, as a result of which extensive investigative materials were prepared.

More than a year or so later, and on the eve of the criminal trial, the assistant state attorney (ASA) assigned to prosecute the case began subpoenaing the insurer’s claim investigators directly, demanding immediate production of the claim investigation materials and threatening to issue search warrants if compliance was not immediately forthcoming. Not surprisingly, prior to our involvement, investigative materials ended up being turned over to the ASA. Our client contacted us to get them back. After multiple lengthy hearings on our motion to quash subpoenas and for the return of the inadvertently produced documents, the trial court finally granted our motion and directed the return of the privileged documents.