Opinion
05-23-00127-CV
11-05-2024
IN RE KIRBY-SMITH MACHINERY, INC. AND CHAD WHITE, Relators
On Appeal from the County Court at Law No. 1 Dallas County, Texas Trial Court Cause No. CC-19-06240-A
Before Justices Pedersen, III, Smith, and Kennedy
ORDER
CRAIG SMITH, JUSTICE
Before this Court is relators' third unopposed motion to supplement the mandamus record with in camera documents reviewed by respondent, the Honorable D'Metria Benson, on December 14, 2022, and February 23, 2023. Relators ask this Court to direct respondent to forward the documents she reviewed in camera to this Court. Because the documents are necessary to our review of the merits of relators' petition for writ of mandamus, we GRANT relators' motion.
Relators filed their petition for writ of mandamus in February 2023. We first requested respondent and real parties in interest to file a response, if any, by June 7, 2023. Prior to that deadline, relators filed a motion to abate notifying this Court that the parties had settled and requesting time to formalize the settlement agreement and dismiss the case. We abated this original proceeding on June 8, 2023, and ordered relators to file a motion to dismiss or a status report by July 7, 2023. Relators filed a status report requesting more time, which we granted, and thereafter continued to file status reports requesting more time because real party in interest Teresa Watson (the plaintiff in the underlying suit) passed away before the settlement documents were executed and, thus, the appointment of an independent administrator became necessary. This original proceeding remained abated for over a year.
On June 21, 2024, we reinstated this proceeding and again requested respondent and real parties in interest to file a response, if any, by July 11, 2024, which we extended until August 12, 2024. To date no response has been received.
Relators continue to advise this Court that the parties are close to reaching a settlement agreement; however, we cannot continue to be hamstrung by the possibility of a future settlement agreement. To our knowledge, the discovery issues raised in relators' petition for writ of mandamus have not become moot despite the length of time this case has been pending.
In their petition for writ of mandamus, relators contend that the respondent abused her discretion by denying relators' request for production of certain documents from some of Watson's medical providers, who are not parties to the underlying case. Five of the ten medical providers in question provided documents to respondent to review in camera on December 14, 2022, and February 23, 2023. These documents are the subject of relators' petition for writ of mandamus. This Court denied relators' first and second unopposed motions to supplement the record with the in camera documents because relators had not shown that they had requested the trial court to provide such documents to this Court and that the trial court had failed or refused to do so. Subsequently, relators sent respondent a letter requesting her to provide this Court with the in camera documents. After respondent did not submit the documents to this Court, relators filed the pending third unopposed motion to supplement the record.
As of this date, respondent has not provided this Court with the in camera documents as requested. Therefore, we GRANT relators' third unopposed motion and DIRECT the Honorable D'Metria Benson, presiding judge of the Dallas County Court at Law No. 1, to provide this Court with the documents she reviewed in camera on December 14, 2022, and February 23, 2023, so that this Court may conduct the in camera review necessary to dispose of this originally proceeding. Respondent shall provide this Court with the in camera documents by December 4, 2024.