eBook details
- Title: Davies V. Superior Court Of Tulare County
- Author : Supreme Court Of California
- Release Date : January 02, 1984
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 76 KB
Description
Petitioner, the plaintiff in an action seeking damages for personal injuries suffered in a single vehicle tractor-trailer accident, sought a writ of mandate to compel the respondent superior court to order real party in interest State of California (State) to answer interrogatories and produce documents containing information about other accidents at the same location. The State had refused a request for production, and had declined to answer two interrogatories, asserting that the information sought was compiled from accident reports made confidential, and thus not subject to discovery, by Vehicle Code sections 20012 and 20014.*fn1 This court issued an alternative writ, with which the superior court and the State have since complied. Although the proceeding was thereby rendered moot the question presented has statewide importance and is of a recurring nature. We have, therefore, exercised our discretion to retain the matter and decide this question. (Green v. Superior Court (1974) 10 Cal. 3d 616 [111 Cal. Rptr. 704, 517 P.2d 1168]; Liberty Mut. Ins. Co. v. Fales (1973) 8 Cal. 3d 712 [106 Cal. Rptr. 21, 505 P.2d 213].) We shall conclude that information about other accidents which discloses neither the identity of the reporting party nor identifying material, although generated from accident reports, is not made confidential by sections 20012 and 20014. We shall also conclude that this information is subject to discovery because it is related to the subject matter of a lawsuit arising out of an accident on a public highway and may lead to discovery of admissible evidence.