Privileged claims files.

• Author: Chirls, Andrea B.
• Position: Letters - Letter to the editor

The authors of "Picking Cotton: Ordinary Business Records Doctrine as Applied to Insurer's Privilege Claims" (May 2013) advocate the holding in Cotton States Mut. Ins. Co. v. Turtle Assoc., Inc., 444 So. 2d 595 (Fla. 4th DCA 1984), as the better approach to issues of privilege in production of insurer claims files in first-party coverage cases. As an attorney working primarily in first-party insurance defense, I have been arguing for many years that the claims files are privileged during litigation, and remain so even after litigation ends.

The problem with the proposition made in the article is that Cotton States does not apply to a first-party coverage action. Many, if not all, of my opposing attorneys rely heavily on Cotton States when attempting to obtain production of my clients' files. The Fourth District, however, clarified Cotton States, which the authors fail to mention.

Four years ago the Fourth District wrote that Cotton States involved a bad faith claim, not a first-party coverage claim. Neighborhood Health Partnership, Inc. v. Peter F. Merkle, M.D., P.A., 8 So. 3d 1180 (Fla...