The plaintiffs brought a motion under Rule 30.10 of the Rules of Civil Procedure seeking production of documents from a non‑party, the Special Investigations Unit, arising from an investigation into a collision between an e‑bicycle and a police vehicle.
The court reviewed the high threshold governing non‑party production, including the requirements that the documents be relevant to a material issue and that it would be unfair to require the moving party to proceed to trial without them.
While relevance was established, the court held that most requested documents should not be produced because equivalent witness information had already been obtained from police sources and the public interest in maintaining SIU witness confidentiality outweighed disclosure.
However, limited disclosure was ordered where fairness required it, including the statement of a deceased witness, the statement of the police officer defendant, related follow‑up reports, and redacted investigator notes.
The balance of the requested documents was not ordered produced.
