West Bend Mutual Insurance v. Higgins

In this first-party bad faith action brought pursuant to section 624.155, Florida Statutes (2007), Petitioner insurer seeks certiorari review of an order of the trial court granting Respondent claimants discovery of certain documents that insurer claims are protected by attorney-client privilege. We deny in part and grant in part the petition for writ of certiorari. As we will briefly discuss below, we conclude that nothing in Allstate Indemnity Co. v. Ruiz, 899 So.2d 1121 (Fla.2005), eliminates the attorney-client privilege in first-party insurance eases where the plaintiff asserts statutory…