Judge: Colin Leis, Case: 19STCV08587, Date: 2023-03-10 Tentative Ruling

Case Number: 19STCV08587    Hearing Date: March 10, 2023    Dept: 74

NATIC’s Motion filed Apr 7, 2022, to Quash Trial Subpoena to Deloitte & Touche

Defendant Lenders have a copy of non-party Deloitte & Touche’s 2020 Independent Auditor’s Report, which is publicly available on the California Department of Insurance’s website. By its subpoena served on March 1, 2022, Lenders want Deloitte to authenticate for trial the copy of the report that Lenders possess. NATIC moves to quash the trial subpoena. NATIC’s motion to quash asserts four reasons to quash the subpoena. (Mtn p. 8) None is persuasive.

First, the subpoena is not harassing.

Second, evidence of reserves may be relevant to Lenders’ theory of the case (that NATIC terminated the policy for reasons other than Lenders’ purported lack of cooperation). NATIC asserts as an additional irrelevancy argument that the Deloitte report covers 2019 and 2020, a time span that predates and post-dates NATIC’s March 2019 termination of the insurance policy. (Mtn 8-9) The court understands Deloitte’s report to be a single report. Because the Deloitte report covers a period in which the NATIC policy was in effect (2019), the fact that within its pages the Deloitte report also covers 2020 is not a reason to quash the entire report.

Third, the subpoena does not violate the parties’ stipulation because the stipulation excluded reserves.

Fourth, and finally, the subpoena does not violate the protective order because Deloitte’s report is in the public domain, thus exposing to public scrutiny any purported private information or purported trade secrets the report might contain.

The court denies the motion to quash. Lenders agree, however, that the Deloitte report may be redacted to conceal all of NATIC’s financial information except for the dollar amount of the reserves.