## Facts

- A fatal motor-vehicle collision occurred on September 5, 2012, involving a truck driven for Sindt Trucking, Inc. and a car driven by Tabitha Frances Guyton Antico.
- The personal representative of the decedent’s estate filed a wrongful-death negligence action against Sindt Trucking and its driver.
- Defendants denied liability and asserted comparative negligence, alleging the decedent was distracted by iPhone use at or near the time of the crash.
- Defendants obtained some carrier calling/texting records and sought additional phone-resident data not shown in those records (including use/location information and internet/app-related activity on the day of the accident).
- Evidence referenced in support of the defense included carrier records indicating texting in the minutes before the crash, witness testimony suggesting the decedent may have been using her phone at the time, and responding troopers’ observations supporting phone-use allegations.
- The iPhone had been preserved and kept unused by the personal representative after the accident.
- After the parties could not agree on a review protocol, defendants moved for an order permitting an expert inspection of electronically stored information on the phone limited to the day/time period around the accident.

## Issues

1. Whether a discovery order authorizing a time-limited expert inspection of a decedent’s iPhone, with monitoring and objection safeguards, departed from the essential requirements of law warranting certiorari relief.
2. Whether permitting the limited inspection violated constitutional privacy protections under article I, section 23 of the Florida Constitution.

## Decision

- The appellate court denied the petition for writ of certiorari and left the discovery order in place.
- The court held the trial court did not depart from the essential requirements of law by allowing a limited, controlled inspection of the iPhone.
- The court concluded the requested data was relevant to the comparative-negligence defense and that the order sufficiently protected privacy interests through narrow scope and procedural safeguards.

## Legal Principles

- Certiorari relief from a nonfinal discovery order requires a showing of (1) a departure from the essential requirements of law, (2) material injury throughout the remainder of the proceedings, and (3) no adequate remedy on appeal.
- Privacy interests implicated by discovery may justify certiorari review in appropriate cases, but privacy rights are not absolute and may be balanced against the need for relevant evidence.
- Trial courts have broad discretion to manage discovery and may permit inspection of personal-device ESI when the request is reasonably calculated to lead to admissible evidence and the order is narrowly limited.
- Protective measures—such as restricting inspection to a defined time window, allowing monitoring by opposing counsel, and permitting objections before production—support the validity of device-inspection orders where sensitive information may be present.
- A party’s failure to propose a workable, less intrusive protocol may support the trial court’s decision to impose a tailored protocol to enable necessary discovery.

## Conclusion

The court refused to quash a discovery order permitting a strictly time-limited, supervised forensic review of a decedent’s iPhone, holding that the trial court properly balanced relevance and privacy and did not commit the kind of clear legal error required for certiorari relief.


Antico v. Sindt Trucking, Inc., 148 So. 3d 163 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2014)