In 2024, the Florida Supreme Court changed the Florida Rules of Civil Procedure, aligning them with federal standards in many areas. One of those areas was the scope of discovery. What was once an expansive often burdensome process now requires parties to show that the scope of requested discovery is proportional to the needs of the case. While Florida litigants adjust to the changes, this article highlights the product liability space and the effects of the proportionality standard on discovery.
A key takeaway: to satisfy the proportionality standard, discovery requests, particularly those seeking vast swaths of corporate data and expansive categories of documents, must now be narrow, focused, and justified by the core issues in the case.
The New Discovery Standard in Florida
Florida’s adoption of the federal proportionality standard in Rule 1.280(b)(1), Florida Rules of Civil Procedure, mirrors the language of Rule 26(b)(1), Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Where previously, parties could discover “any non-privileged matter relevant to the subject matter of the case, so long as it was reasonably calculated to lead to admissible evidence,” now the scope is limited to information that is relevant to the specific claims or defenses in the case, and proportionate to the needs of the case.[1] The proportionality standard requires courts and parties to consider factors such as the importance of the issues, the amount in controversy, ease of access to information, parties’ resources, and whether the burden or expense of discovery outweighs its likely benefit.[2] Under this standard, the parties and the court have a collective responsibility to be mindful of the parameters when drafting discovery and resolving discovery disputes. On one hand, the party claiming undue burden or expense ordinarily has better information about those facts than the party requesting the information. On the other hand, the party claiming that a request is important to their case should be able to explain how the information bears on their claims.
Impact on Product Liability Litigation
The proportionality standard should impact discovery in the product liability landscape. This practice area is inherently document-intensive and often involves broad theories of liability, such as defective design, failure to warn, or negligent testing—claims that can open the door to sweeping discovery into a company’s historical product development, regulatory interactions, testing protocols, internal communications, and prior claims or incidents.
Florida’s old standard allowed expansive discovery demands because nearly anything “reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence” was fair game. Proportionality places practical checks on requests that, while marginally relevant, impose enormous discovery burdens—particularly on manufacturers with decades of archived data in multiple locations, tangible and electronically stored. This new framework may reshape the typical asymmetry between a party with limited stored data versus a long-standing corporation.
In many product liability cases, an individual with limited information and documents, could easily generate and serve broad discovery requests seeking voluminous information and requiring the corporation to expend considerable resources to satisfy. But under the proportionality standard, plaintiffs must go beyond demonstrating relevance—they must also show that the breadth of their requests is proportionate to the facts and legal theories actually in dispute. Boilerplate requests and speculative fishing expeditions are less likely to survive judicial scrutiny. Conversely, defendants invoking burden or overbreadth must substantiate those claims, often through declarations or specific factual showings about volume, cost, or technical difficulty. For both sides, the new regime demands earlier, more substantive discovery planning, and an effort to narrow disputes based on factual need, not merely adversarial leverage.
What We Can Expect
Analyzing federal case law aides in predicting the changes Florida litigants can expect.
In Xarelto, the plaintiffs in a multidistrict product liability action sought pre-deposition production of personnel files for certain employees of the drug manufacturer.[3] The court framed the issue as, “whether if, in a products liability MDL, allegations of ‘rush to the market” liability and a non-particularized interest in discovering evidence of witness bias are sufficient to override the privacy interests of all deposed employees and former employees in their personnel files.”[4] While the plaintiffs limited their request to the files on only the employees being deposed, and categories such as performance evaluations and compensation information related to the drug Xarelto, the court denied the request, finding it disproportionate to the needs of the case.[5] The court emphasized the heightened privacy interests associated with the personnel files, noting that such documents often contain sensitive and irrelevant information.[6] The court applied a balancing test, requiring a witness-specific showing of relevance and particularity to overcome privacy concerns.[7] The plaintiffs’ generalized references to their “rush to the market” liability theory and potential witness bias were insufficient to justify broad access to private employment records.[8]
In Smith, the plaintiff suffered injuries from an accident during which her 1996 Toyota 4Runner rolled over.[9] The plaintiff sought expansive discovery from Toyota, including testimony and documents related to over thirty years of vehicle development and multiple generations of Toyota 4Runner SUVs, as well as Computer-Aided Engineering (CAE) simulations on rollover risks.[10] Toyota objected that the discovery was overly broad, unduly burdensome, and disproportionate to the needs of the case.[11] The court agreed in large part, noting that “[d]iscovery in cases similar to this litigation is frequently enormously expensive for the parties and extraordinarily burdensome for counsel.”[12] While acknowledging that comparative model discovery can be appropriate in product liability cases, the court emphasized that plaintiffs must show substantial similarity between the subject vehicle and other models to justify such requests.[13] The plaintiffs failed to make that showing for earlier versions.[14] The court further held that the discovery of CAE testing conducted after the production of the 1997 model was not proportional to the needs of the case, as plaintiffs could not articulate how it would be relevant to the liability theories involving that specific model year.[15]
In Bard, applying the proportionality requirement, the court ruled that the burden of discovering electronically stored information (ESI) held by a medical device manufacturer’s foreign subsidiaries regarding their communications with foreign regulators outweighed the benefit of such discovery in a product liability action by patients against the manufacturer.[16] The court found that the manufacturer had entities in eighteen countries in addition to the United States, which made the burden of identifying the appropriate record custodians and collecting ESI for the thirteen-year period sought by the patients significant.[17] The patients’ reasons for seeking the discovery, the mere possibility of finding an inconsistency between the communications to foreign regulators and communications to American regulators, failed to justify this burden.[18]
In Fassett, a lawnmower user injured by a fuel cap “geysering” incident sought expansive discovery in a product liability action.[19] The plaintiffs moved to compel broad discovery on alternative gas cap designs, other product models, and prior incidents across product lines.[20] The court allowed discovery of warranty data and testing information related to fuel caps that were substantially similar in design and function to the one at issue—namely, the “open” gas cap design—but limited discovery where the plaintiffs failed to establish sufficient similarity across cap types of product models.[21] For example, discovery was restricted to five specific lawnmower models that shared the same gas cap, fuel tank, frame, engine layout, and heat shielding, because only those factors influenced the alleged ignition mechanism.[22] The court also narrowed the temporal scope of discovery, holding that in product defect cases involving alternative feasible designs, the default period should run from when the product was manufactured and sold—not from the date of the accident.[23]
Together, these decisions underscore a new reality for Florida product liability practice: litigants must now approach discovery with specificity, factual support, and strategic restraint. Courts are poised to limit shotgun discovery tactics and impose model-by-model, part-by-part, and timeframe-specific filters to ensure proportionality. Florida litigators should be prepared to offer affirmative proportionality showings and anticipate courts asking not just is it relevant, but is it necessary?
Conclusion
While Florida litigants adjust to the change, this article highlights the implications for product liability litigation—a space historically marked by voluminous document requests, complex factual issues, and significant asymmetries between individual plaintiffs and corporate defendants. By examining how federal courts have applied this standard, a clear message emerges: discovery requests that seek vast amounts of corporate data—spanning decades, product lines, and theoretical scenarios—will not be reflexively granted. Courts now expect a disciplined, evidence-driven approach to discovery, one grounded in factual support, model-specific reasoning, and a genuine effort to balance the benefit of the information against the cost of obtaining it.
[1] Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.280 (2012).
[2] Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.280(c)(1) (2024).
[3] In re Xarelto (Rivaroxaban) Prods. Liab. Litig., 313 F.R.D. 32, 38 (E.D. La. 2016).
[4] Id. at 34.
[5] Id.
[6] Id. at 36-37.
[7] Id.
[8] Id. at 37.
[9] Smith v. Toyota Motor Corp., No. 2:16-CV-00024-ERW, 2017 WL 1425993, at *1 (E.D. Mo. Apr. 21, 2017).
[10] Id.
[11] Id.
[12] Id. at *4.
[13] Id. at *2.
[14] Id. at *2-6.
[15] Id. at *7.
[16] In re Bard IVC Filters Prods. Liab. Litig., 317 F.R.D. 562, 566 (D. Ariz. 2016).
[17] Id.
[18] Id.
[19] Fassett v. Sears Holdings Corp., 319 F.R.D. 143, 154 (M.D. Pa. 2017).
[20] Id.
[21] Id. at 154-157.
[22] Id.
[23] Id. at 157.
