Case Law Update

Relevant Facts & Procedural History

Effective January 1, 2025, the Florida Supreme Court adopted amendments to Florida Rules of Civil Procedure 1.280 (General Provisions Governing Discovery) which incorporated the proportionality language of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b)(1) into the Florida rules and required initial discovery disclosures and discovery supplementation like the federal rules.

Where previously, parties could discover “any non-privileged matter relevant to the subject matter of the case, so long as it was reasonably calculated to lead to admissible evidence,” now the scope is limited to information that is relevant to the specific claims or defenses in the case, and proportionate to the needs of the case.

The proportionality standard requires courts and parties to consider factors such as the importance of the issues, the amount in controversy, ease of access to information, parties’ resources, and whether the burden or expense of discovery outweighs its likely benefit. Under this standard, the parties and the court have a collective responsibility to be mindful of the parameters when drafting discovery and resolving discovery disputes. On one hand, the party claiming undue burden or expense ordinarily has better information about those facts than the party requesting the information. On the other hand, the party claiming that a request is important to their case should be able to explain how the information bears on their claims.

Proportionality requires that discovery requests, while relevant, must also be proportional to the case’s needs, acting as a cost-benefit analysis to prevent excessive burdens by weighing factors like the issues’ importance, amount in controversy, parties’ resources, and the discovery’s likely benefit versus its burden. This standard ensures discovery is efficient and focused, aiming for just, speedy, and inexpensive case resolution by eliminating wasteful requests and fishing expeditions under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b)(1) and now as it relates to Florida.

First, the Court added a Commentary to rule 1.280 to explain that the Court has adopted almost all the text of federal rule 26(b)(1) and that it is “to be construed and applied in accordance with the federal proportionality standard.” This Court Commentary is intended to lead practitioners and judges to look to federal history and precedents when applying proportionality. Next, to avoid discovery objections that just generally cite proportionality without any further explanation, the Court amends rules 1.340 and 1.350 to require providing the grounds for objecting “with specificity,” “including the reasons.”

The Court then amended rule 1.380 to provide an enforcement mechanism for the initial discovery disclosure and supplemental discovery obligations that the Court added in rule 1.280. The amendments to rule 1.380 also detail the sanctions available when a party fails to disclose or to supplement an earlier response. Further, to address the lack of coordination between the timing of initial discovery disclosures and the timing of the first set of discovery requests, the Court amended rule 1.280 to state that “[a] party may not seek discovery from any source before that party’s initial disclosure obligations are satisfied, except when authorized by stipulation or by court order.”

Key Holdings

Analyzing federal case law aides in predicting the changes Florida litigants can expect.

In Xarelto, the plaintiffs in a multidistrict product liability action sought pre-deposition production of personnel files for certain employees of the drug manufacturer. The court framed the issue as, “whether if, in a products liability MDL, allegations of ‘rush to the market’ liability and a non-particularized interest in discovering evidence of witness bias are sufficient to override the privacy interests of all deposed employees and former employees in their personnel files.” While the plaintiffs limited their request to the files on only the employees being deposed, and categories such as performance evaluations and compensation information related to the drug Xarelto, the court denied the request, finding it disproportionate to the needs of the case. The court emphasized the heightened privacy interests associated with the personnel files, noting that such documents often contain sensitive and irrelevant information. The court applied a balancing test, requiring a witness-specific showing of relevance and particularity to overcome privacy concerns. The plaintiffs’ generalized references to their “rush to the market” liability theory and potential witness bias were insufficient to justify broad access to private employment records.

In Smith, the plaintiff suffered injuries from an accident during which her 1996 Toyota 4Runner rolled over. The plaintiff sought expansive discovery from Toyota, including testimony and documents related to over thirty years of vehicle development and multiple generations of Toyota 4Runner SUVs, as well as Computer-Aided Engineering (CAE) simulations on rollover risks. Toyota objected that the discovery was overly broad, unduly burdensome, and disproportionate to the needs of the case. The court agreed in large part, noting that “[d]iscovery in cases similar to this litigation is frequently enormously expensive for the parties and extraordinarily burdensome for counsel.” While acknowledging that comparative model discovery can be appropriate in product liability cases, the court emphasized that plaintiffs must show substantial similarity between the subject vehicle and other models to justify such requests. The plaintiffs failed to make that showing for earlier versions. The court further held that the discovery of CAE testing conducted after the production of the 1997 model was not proportional to the needs of the case, as plaintiffs could not articulate how it would be relevant to the liability theories involving that specific model year.

In Bard, applying the proportionality requirement, the court ruled that the burden of discovering electronically stored information (ESI) held by a medical device manufacturer’s foreign subsidiaries regarding their communications with foreign regulators outweighed the benefit of such discovery in a product liability action by patients against the manufacturer. The court found that the manufacturer had entities in eighteen countries in addition to the United States, which made the burden of identifying the appropriate record custodians and collecting ESI for the thirteen-year period sought by the patients significant. The patients’ reasons for seeking the discovery, the mere possibility of finding an inconsistency between the communications to foreign regulators and communications to American regulators, failed to justify this burden.

Together, these decisions underscore a new reality for Florida practice: litigants must now approach discovery with specificity, factual support, and strategic restraint. Courts are poised to limit shotgun discovery tactics and impose model-by-model, part-by-part, and timeframe-specific filters to ensure proportionality. Florida litigators should be prepared to offer affirmative proportionality showings and anticipate courts asking not just is it relevant, but is it necessary?

Practical Implications for Attorneys

Florida’s new proportionality rule requires plaintiffs to go beyond demonstrating relevance — they must also show that the breadth of their requests is proportionate to the facts and legal theories actually in dispute, and not just a fishing expedition.

The new rule will require more work from lawyers up front to ensure that discovery facilitates resolution of the claims and defenses at issue. Lawyers who master proportionality principles can manage litigation costs with streamlined discovery.

In practice:

• Parties must make early, substantive discovery plans;
• Boilerplate requests are scrutinized; overbroad requests are less likely to succeed;
• Burden claims must be substantiated with specific facts (cost, volume, technical issues);
• It encourages focusing on core discovery and avoiding “diminishing returns.”

Failure to do so can result in discovery denial, significant delays, and even sanctions.

This case law update is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice, nor does it create an attorney-client relationship. The application of the authorities discussed depends on the specific facts of each case. Attorneys at Shiner Law Group are Members of The Florida Bar. This is attorney advertising.