Background
Timothy P. Savage petitioned for certiorari review of a Collier County Court proceeding. The opinion identifies Deborah Cunningham as the county-court judge.
The Sixth District’s brief per curiam decision addressed authority concerning State requests to subpoena protected medical records. The cited cases differed over whether the State must present evidence at a hearing or whether the court may rely on the State’s argument together with an accident report or probable-cause affidavit to establish relevance.
The Court’s Holding
The Sixth District denied Savage’s petition for writ of certiorari. It did not quash the county court’s ruling or otherwise grant relief.
The court contrasted its earlier decision in Roberts v. State, which found certiorari relief appropriate where the State presented no evidence supporting a medical-records subpoena, with decisions from the Second, Fourth, and Fifth Districts allowing reliance on the State’s argument and an accident report or probable-cause affidavit to establish relevance.
The court also cited the governing certiorari standard: the petitioner must establish a departure from the essential requirements of law causing material injury that cannot be corrected on postjudgment appeal. Irreparable harm is jurisdictional and must be established before the merits are addressed.
Key Takeaways
- The petition for writ of certiorari was denied.
- The decision highlights an interdistrict difference concerning the showing required for a State medical-records subpoena.
- Certiorari requires jurisdictional irreparable harm as well as a departure from the essential requirements of law.
Why It Matters
The ruling leaves the county-court proceeding undisturbed and signals that the Sixth District did not extend Roberts to grant relief on the record presented here. Practitioners challenging medical-record subpoenas should focus on the evidence or record supporting relevance and on the separate jurisdictional requirement of irreparable harm.