Ghio v. Liberty Ins. Underwriters, Inc.

Citations

• 212 Conn. App. 754

Syllabus

The plaintiffs in error, four individual insureds, filed a writ of error, challeng- ing a discovery order issued by the trial court finding that the insureds had waived the attorney-client privilege as to all communications con- cerning the merits of the claims of the plaintiffs in the underlying action, W and J. In a prior action, W and J brought a claim against the insureds and their company, B Co., which owned an insurance policy issued by the defendant in error, L Co., which provided liability coverage for B Co. and its directors and officers. Pursuant to the policy, L Co. paid the costs of defending against W and J's action. Thereafter, L Co. denied that the policy provided coverage for any judgment in that action, and the insureds entered into a stipulated judgment assigning their rights under the policy to W and J and directed their attorney, E, to provide W and J with copies of all communications with L Co. regarding coverage under the policy, redacted as necessary to protect the attorney-client privilege. W and J then brought the underlying action against L Co., seeking to enforce the stipulated judgment, during which they served on L Co. a discovery request seeking all communications between L Co. and E regarding the prior action against the insureds. After L Co. informed W and J that the responsive documents were protected by the attorney-client privilege, the court held a discovery conference and ordered L Co. to produce all communications between L Co. and E that constituted statements of fact or related to the issue of insurance coverage. The insureds reviewed and redacted portions of the relevant documents and instructed L Co. as to which documents to withhold entirely, and L Co. provided the redacted documents and a privilege log to W and J. Thereafter, W and J filed a motion for summary judgment in the underlying action, in which they relied on certain privileged communications between E and L Co., which E had disclosed to them pursuant to the stipu