The 11th Circuit, in a 1983 decision, sought, among other things, a district court order quoting the plaintiff`s subpoena for much of the defendant`s settlement.75 The court refused to find abuse of power in the court`s order that blocked the recordings.76 Reaffirming the court`s earlier skepticism that the number of hours was the number of hours. the 11th Circle recognized that the number of hours that an applicant deems necessary to prepare a case appropriately may differ significantly from the time that another applicant spent in the same case.77 Referring to Mirabal, the court recognized that the number of hours that an applicant deems necessary to prepare a case appropriately may differ significantly from the time another applicant spent in the same case.77 Referring to Mirabal , the court recognized that “for one party, the case may have a much higher precedent than the other.” 78 Indeed, a party may hire much more experienced lawyers at a higher but not necessarily inadequate billing rate.79 The court recognized that district courts should have the flexibility and discretion to permit such a discovery if relevant – and that objections may be significant, non-receivable or dereased – the court warned that there are many other possibilities. to demonstrate the adequacy of legal fees that do not involve a review of the opponent`s accounting documents. , the first instinct of a good lawyer is correct: without your client`s consent to disclose the agreement, you must object to a request to produce it and refuse to produce it, unless a final court order has asked him to do so. See code Evid 914 (b). Section 6149 requires no less. The fact that the insurer questioned the owners` legal fees as excessive does not in itself change the analysis. A party may challenge the fee application of a non-usual party, although that party also paid a fee that was not “usual” as long as the challenger does not rely on its own costs to prove it. In the years before Paton, courts dealt with the issues of the discovery and admissibility of an opponent`s settlement documents largely with intellectual curiosity, citing in part the restless state of Florida. For example, in 1999, the Fifth District Court of Appeal examined the differences of opinion expressed by courts across the country on this issue to this point, and indicated that some courts found that an opponent`s settlement exhibits were irrelevant because of the influence of so many factors on a particular lawyer`s invoices; others regularly admit this evidence on the grounds that the unique characteristics of a lawyer`s accounting approach are not admissible; And other appelal courts leave questions of inquiry and admissibility in the hands of judges and refuse to find abuse of discretion regardless of the outcome.12 Without clarity in Florida on this issue, the Fifth Arrondissement chose the latter point and announced a case-by-case, case-by-case approach, based on the individual facts of each case, at discretion. , which was entrusted to the courts. , the holding company of the Florida Supreme Court purports to clarify the state of the law in the arena of discovery of an opponent`s legal fees and give the courts leeway to create found findings and other framed injunctions on unique facts and circumstances.