A Texas appellate court ruled a trial court wrongly compelled Home Depot USA Inc. to produce certain documents and materials sought by an employee in an injured worker case.
The Court of Appeals of Texas ruled Thursday a trial court erred in issuing an order compelling discovery in a personal injury lawsuit by worker Brandon Giard.
Mr. Giard claimed he injured his back while loading a lawnmower onto a customer’s trailer in November 2020.
He served Home Depot with a deposition notice in January seeking certain documents and testimony from corporate representatives. Home Depot objected, arguing the information sought was overly broad and not applicable to the case, but it still agreed to offer the testimony of the manager of the store where Mr. Giard worked.
Lawyers on both sides subsequently engaged in various discovery disagreements but a trial judge ultimately sided with Mr. Giard on his discovery requests.
Home Depot appealed the order, but Mr. Giard argued the company waived its objections to his deposition notice when it failed to file a motion for a protective order instead of conceding to certain discovery requests.
The appeals court found Home Depot was harmed by the trial court’s ruling compelling discovery, and that the court wrongly refused to revisit the company’s argument that it shouldn’t be required to produce materials and videos unrelated to the workplace incident giving rise to Mr. Giard’s injuries.