Civil Litigation
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Alterra Healthcare Corp., et al. v. Estate of Francis Shelley
27 Fla. L. Weekly S735 (Fla. September 13, 2002)
The general rule is that nonpublic employers do not have standing to assert a right to privacy on behalf of their employees when employee files are included in discovery requests. However, nonpublic employees may have a legitimate privacy interest in certain information in their personnel files and they may have standing as interveners in litigation to protect that interest. Courts should consider that alleged privacy interest to determine the relevancy of the information whether the employee has intervened or not. Furthermore, nonpublic employers may have standing to object that information in employee files is irrelevant. Due to the broad scope of discovery under Fla. R. Civ. Pro. 1.280, if private and confidential information that is not relevant is redacted or withheld from the documents produced, it would be appropriate to require the records custodian to provide to the requesting party details concerning the information withheld, to enable the parties to fully address the issue at the trial level and to challenge the trial court
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