Marylander v. Superior Court

Opinion

VOGEL (C. S.), P. J.

Introduction

A defendant in pending civil litigation seeks to compel discovery from a state agency of records that are relevant to his defense in the underlying case. The records are memoranda from the state agency to the Governor’s Office. The trial court denied a motion to compel production, agreeing with the state agency that such memoranda are absolutely privileged on the grounds that correspondence to the Governor is exempt from disclosure as a public record, and a common law “deliberative process” privilege absolutely protects such interoffice communications in…