Shutrump v. Safeco Insurance Company of America, 4:17-cv-00022

Background

Plaintiff Joey Shutrump sued Safeco for breach of contract and bad faith after an April 2014 uninsured-motorist claim; Safeco offered less than plaintiff sought, attributing part of plaintiff’s claimed injuries to a prior March 2009 accident.
Plaintiff previously made a claim (and settled) with American Mercury Insurance arising from the March 2009 accident for neck/back injuries.
Safeco served a Rule 45 subpoena on Mercury seeking the entire Mercury claim file for the March 2009 accident.
Plaintiff and non-party Mercury moved to quash, arguing the file is irrelevant, overly broad, and contains privileged/confidential materials.
Safeco opposed, arguing the file is relevant to its defense that some injuries predate the 2014 accident and that the subpoena is proper.
The court denied both motions to quash and ordered Mercury to produce nonprivileged responsive material (with privilege assertions handled under Rule 26(b)(5)).

Issues

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Standing to challenge third-party subpoena	Shutrump asserted privacy interest in medical and settlement information and therefore may object	Safeco argued plaintiff lacked standing to quash a subpoena served on a third party absent privilege or proprietary interest	Plaintiff has a legitimate privacy interest in medical records and thus has standing to challenge the subpoena
Relevance of Mercury file	The file is irrelevant because plaintiff already produced medical records for the 2009 accident	Safeco argued Mercury’s file may contain additional investigative findings and information relevant to causation and damages	The Mercury March 2009 claim file is relevant to Safeco’s defense and discoverable under Rule 26(b)(1)
Overbreadth of subpoena	The subpoena seeks an entire file and is an impermissible fishing expedition	Safeco noted it requests a discrete claim file, not unduly broad categories	The subpoena is not facially overly broad because it requests a discrete file and no evidence showed scope exceeded what it appears to request
Privilege/confidentiality	Mercury claimed attorney-client and work-product protection and that the file contains a confidential settlement agreement	Safeco argued Mercury failed to substantiate privilege claims and confidentiality alone does not bar discovery	Mercury failed to meet its burden to establish privilege; confidentiality alone does not shield settlement documents—privilege assertions must be supported and handled via Rule 26(b)(5)

Key Cases Cited

Morales v. E.D. Etnyre & Co., 228 F.R.D. 694 (D.N.M. 2005) (burden on moving party to establish grounds to quash a subpoena)
United States v. 2121 Celeste Rd. SW, Albuquerque, N.M., 307 F.R.D. 572 (D.N.M. 2015) (discovery is not a license for fishing expeditions)
Williams v. Sprint/United Mgmt. Co., 245 F.R.D. 660 (D. Kan. 2007) (party asserting privilege bears burden of proof)
DIRECTV, Inc. v. Puccinelli, 224 F.R.D. 667 (D. Kan. 2004) (confidentiality alone does not make a settlement agreement privileged)