GILDA S. LA PAZ CALVO, APPELLANT,
v.
JUAN J. CALVO, APPELLEE

Fla. 3d DCA | 1986-06-03
No. 86-292
Before SCHWARTZ, C.J., and HENDRY and HUBBART, JJ.
489 So. 2d 833 Florida District Court of Appeal, Third District (1986)

AI-generated. These summaries, headnotes, and key points are machine-generated and may contain errors or omissions. Always verify against the full opinion text below. Not legal advice.

Synopsis

In a post-judgment dissolution of marriage proceeding, the wife sought a protective order to prevent discovery of her financial records. The appellate court granted the petition for writ of certiorari, quashing the trial court's denial of the protective order because the wife's financial status was not at issue in the proceeding and discovery of her financial records could not lead to admissible evidence.


Holding

The appellate court held that the trial court erroneously denied the protective order because the wife's financial records could not possibly lead to admissible evidence, as her financial status was not an issue in the proceedings below, and the husband failed to demonstrate the relevance of these records beyond harassment.


Headnotes

[1] A protective order should be granted when discovery requests seek financial information that is irrelevant to the issues in the underlying proceedings.

[2] Discovery of financial records is not permissible when the requesting party fails to demonstrate the relevance of such records to the case.

Previewing 2 of 4 headnotes on this case. FLexlaw’s editorially structured points of law — every proposition, pinpointed — are reserved for members.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

Key Quotes

“the financial records sought herein could not possibly lead to the discovery of admissible evidence because the wife's financial status was not an issue below”

Establishes the core principle that discovery must be relevant to disputed issues in the proceeding

Previewing 1 of 3 key quotes on this case — the court’s exact language, pinpointed for members.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

Facts & Procedural History

The wife brought post-judgment proceedings against the husband to enforce a final judgment of marriage dissolution and accelerate future payments. The…

The full statement of facts, procedural history, and disposition for this case are member content.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

© FLexlaw, Inc. — AI-generated enrichments are proprietary. All rights reserved.


Opinion of the Court
PER CURIAM.

PER CURIAM.

This is an appeal from a non-final order denying the wife Gilda S. La Paz Calvo’s motion for a protective order wherein she sought to preclude discovery of her financial status. This order was entered in post-judgment proceedings which the wife brought to enforce a final judgment of marriage dissolution against the husband Juan J. Calvo and to accelerate future payments due thereunder. We treat this appeal as a petition for a writ of certiorari, see Brooks v. Owens, 97 So. 2d 693 (Fla. 1957); Kilgore v. Bird, 149 Fla. 570, 582, 6 So. 2d 541, 545 (1942); Fla.R.App.P. 9.040(c); see generally, Wetherington, Appellate Review of Final and Non-final Orders in Florida Civil Cases — An Overview, 47 Law & Contemp. Probs. 61, 81, 84 (1984), grant the subject petition, and quash the order under review.

The wife claims in her petition filed below that the husband is in considerable arrears under the final judgment and has paid her only $5,000 pursuant thereto. The husband does not deny that he is in arrears under the final judgment and admits that he has paid the wife only $5,000 thus far; however, he disputes the amount of arrear-ages due and owing. There was no issue concerning the wife’s financial resources raised below, either by the wife’s petition or the husband’s response thereto; rather, the sole issues below were (a) the amount which the husband owes the wife under the final judgment, and (b) whether future payments due thereunder should be accelerated based on the husband’s past performance of nonpayment.

The husband subsequently issued four subpoenas duces tecum for deposition, two on banking institutions and two on the wife’s relatives, in which he sought to discover various bank accounts and certificates of deposit held by the wife of members of her family. The wife sought a protective order from these subpoenas, and the trial court denied this request. We entirely agree with the wife’s contention that the financial records sought herein could not possibly lead to the discovery of admissible evidence because the wife’s financial status was not an issue below. Indeed, the husband has failed to demonstrate what possible relevance these records might have in the proceedings below other than to harass the wife. This being so, the order under review, which denies the wife’s motion for a protective order, was erroneously entered below and must be quashed. See Caribbean Security Systems, Inc. v. Security Control Systems, Inc., 486 So. 2d 654 (Fla. 3d DCA 1986); Leonhardt v. Cammack, 327 So. 2d 848 (Fla. 4th DCA), cert. denied, 339 So. 2d 1167 (Fla.1976); Fla.R.Civ.P. 1.280(b)(1).

The petition for certiorari is granted, the order under review is quashed, and the cause is remanded to the trial court with directions to grant the wife’s motion for a protective order. Reversed and remanded.


Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus


Citator

Authorities Cited

Full citator, related cases, and AI research tools

Open in FLexlaw