AUSTIN - Earlier this month, the ridesharing company Lyft filed a petition for review in the Texas Supreme Court, telling justices they “should reaffirm the importance of agreed protective orders and put an end to the discovery abuse” transpiring in the case.
Since Lyft filed its petition on Sept. 8, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, together with the American Property Casualty Insurance Association, and the Texas Civil Justice League have filed amicus briefs in support of the company, court records show.
According to Lyft’s petition, the appeal stems from a discovery dispute in a personal injury case. During discovery, Lyft negotiated an agreed protective order (APO) with one of the plaintiffs to produce its excess insurance policies, which Lyft considers and treats as confidential.
After receiving the excess policies, the plaintiff challenged the confidentiality designations, seeking to freely distribute the excess policies beyond the scope of the APO. The trial court sided with the plaintiff and a court of appeals affirmed the ruling.
In its brief, TCJL states that it views the case as a “very serious frontal attack on the ability of our members to do business in Texas without their confidential information becoming the stock and trade of social media platforms and attorney advertising.
“The only reason for broad public disclosure of such information is to assist in the solicitation of litigation,” the brief states. “And as long as there are trial courts willing to give their blessing, no business can have any faith in the judicial system to enforce the protections that this Court has so carefully crafted in its decisions.
“How businesses will respond will vary from case to case, but it would be a crying shame for the kind of abuse we see in this case to poison the well for everybody.”
The U.S. Chamber believes that failing “to protect the confidentiality of excess insurance policies produced in litigation will harm business across industry sectors.”
“The trial court’s decision does not merely affect Lyft, the rideshare industry, or even the broader ‘gig’ economy,” the Chamber’s brief states. “Left undisturbed, it will impact all sorts of ‘commercial and professional insureds’ … (and) also adversely affect the insurers who issue excess insurance policies.”
In addition to filing a brief, TCJL also wrote about the case on its website, stating that “no defendant in its right mind will trust a negotiated, agreed protective order if it cannot be sure that the plaintiff won’t turn around and get the trial court to disregard it.”
“In short, this case is an affront to the judicial system and undermines confidence in its fairness and impartiality,” TCJL writes. “We hope that the Court sees fit to address it.”
In its petition, Lyft states that: “Under the plain language of the APO, the excess policies are ‘Proprietary Information’ subject to the confidentiality restrictions and protections. The facts as submitted by Lyft in support of its motion are not in dispute.
“The undisputed facts establish that Lyft protected its excess policies by contract and maintained them as confidential, and, thus, that the excess policies were ‘confidential’ under the APO was established as a matter of law.”
Supreme Court case No. 23-0739
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