A plaintiff is not entitled to compel discovery of a defendant's internal incident reports absent a showing of need and inability to obtain the substantial equivalent without undue hardship.
In a personal injury action arising from a fall inside a supermarket, the plaintiff seeks to compel the defendant to answer interrogatories requesting the contents of internal incident reports. The court addresses whether the plaintiff is entitled to compel discovery of these reports. The court applies the rule that a party is not entitled to compel discovery of internal incident reports absent a showing of a need and an inability to otherwise obtain the substantial equivalent without undue hardship. The court grants the writ of certiorari and quashes the trial court’s order compelling answers to the specific interrogatories regarding the incident reports, while noting that the plaintiff may still request basic identifying information about prior similar incidents.
At page 175 was injured when she fell from a scale available to the public inside the supermarket. Absent a showing of a need and an inability to otherwise obtain the…1 citing case
- Hilliard v. Speedway Superamerica LLC, 766 So. 2d 1153 (Fla. 4th DCA 2000).published See, e.g., Publix Supermarkets, Inc. v. Martin, 739 So.2d 174, 175 (Fla. 2d DCA 1999); Thomas v. Publix Supermarkets, Inc., 578 So.2d 64, 64 (Fla. 4th DCA 1991); Saunders v. Florida Keys Elec.
v.
Bertie MARTIN
Publix Supermarkets, Inc. (Publix), petitions for a writ of certiorari requesting that this court quash the trial court’s order granting Bertie Martin’s (Martin) motion to compel answers to three interrogatories. We grant the petition for writ of certiorari as to interrogatories number 20 and number 24 and quash that portion of the trial court’s order. We deny the writ as to number 21 of the interrogatories without comment.
Publix is a defendant in a personal injury action filed by Martin, who[*175] was injured when she fell from a scale available to the public inside the supermarket. Absent a showing of a need and an inability to otherwise obtain the substantial equivalent without undue hardship, Martin is not entitled to compel discovery of the information contained in the incident reports of Publix. Therefore, we grant the writ and quash the trial court’s order as to interrogatories number 20 and number 24. See Albertsons, Inc. v. Howells, 518 So.2d 291 (Fla. 2d DCA 1987); Intercontinental Properties, Inc. v. Samy, 685 So.2d 1035 (Fla. 3d DCA 1997). This does not preclude Martin from requesting Publix to furnish her the name and address of any person who has fallen off a similar scale in any Publix Supermarket over the past five years, the date of that incident, and the location of the supermarket. See Cunningham v. Anchor Hocking Corp., 558 So.2d 93 (Fla. 1st DCA 1990).
The petition for writ of certiorari is granted in part and denied in part.
ALTENBERND and CASANUEVA, JJ., Concur.