Haniff v. Superior Court, No. H043345 (D6 Mar. 1, 2017)
The trial court ordered a personal injury to submit to a vocational rehabilitation exam to examine his capacity for other work in the future. The exam is basically an interview, along with some aptitude and interest testing. Defendants wanted it to show mitigation against Plaintiff’s wage loss claims.
But Plaintiff took a writ, which the Court of Appeal grants. Discovery in California is a creature of statute; parties can’t get forms of discovery that aren’t authorized. Code of Civil Procedure § 2019.010 lists those methods: “(1) oral and written depositions; (2) interrogatories to a party; (3) inspections of documents, things, and places; (4) physical and mental examinations; (5) requests for admissions; and (6) simultaneous exchanges of expert trial witness information.” Submitting to a vocational rehabilitation exam is not one of them. Nor, contrary to Defendant’s argument, was the exam authorized by § 2017.010, which broadly defines the scope, not the methods, of discovery.
Writ granted.
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