# In re the Detention of West

> Washington Supreme Court · May 5, 2011 · 171 Wash. 2d 383

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/4714594

## Case

- **Full name:** In the Matter of the Detention of Gale West
- **Court:** Washington Supreme Court
- **Decided:** May 5, 2011
- **Citations:** 171 Wash. 2d 383
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Madsen
- **Judges:** Alexander, Chambers, Fairhurst, Johnson, Madsen, Owens, Sanders, Stephens
- **Cited by:** 25 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/4714594

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- affirming finding of work product when the court had several examples of materials sought

## Opinion text

Madsen, C.J.
¶49 (concurring) — I agree with the result reached by the majority. However, I write separately because I continue to believe, as I explained in my concurrence in In re Firestorm 1991, 129 Wn.2d 130,153 , 916 P.2d 411 (1996) (Madsen, J., concurring), that when CR 26(b)(4) states that its provisions are “[s]ubject to the provisions” of CR 26(b)(5), it means that insofar as provisions in CR 26(b)(5) are different from those in CR 26(b)(4), CR 26(b)(5) controls. It does not mean that if CR 26(b)(5) applies to discovery sought from an expert, then CR 26(b)(4) cannot apply at all. Instead, by its plain language and the purposes of the two subsections, when discovery is sought from experts the work product rule of CR 26(b)(4) is not thereby rendered wholly irrelevant and inapplicable. Rather, a party’s expert might possess information that may and *413 should be protected by the work product doctrine and CR 26(b)(4)’s requirement of a showing of “substantial need.”
¶50 Although I concur with the result in this case, we should not be surprised when we are presented with a case where, following the majority’s interpretation of CR 26, we are led to an anomalous and unfortunate result.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/4714594. Public record. Not legal advice.