Whitener v. First Union National Bank of Florida, 2005 WL 1047268 (Fla. 5th DCA May 6, 2005) (Trial Court Order Quashed) This case involves a single trust divided into two parts. The same trustee for both trusts was First Union National Bank of Florida (“First Union”). One beneficiary sued First Union in Duval County, which falls under the jurisdiction of the First DCA. In the course of the Duval-county litigation, the First DCA ruled that certain documents fell within the crime-fraud exception of the attorney-client privilege, and were thus discoverable. The second beneficiary sued First Union in Seminole County, which falls under the jurisdiction of the Fifth DCA. In the course of the Seminole-county litigation, the Fifth DCA ruled in the case cited at the top of this post that the same documents addressed by the First DCA were privileged, and thus due to their previous disclosure, counsel for the Seminole-county litigant was disqualified. Not to be so easily deterred, the Seminole-county litigant simply hired the lawyers involved in the Duval-county litigation and moved forward with her case . . . with the benefit of the “privileged” documents her previous attorneys were disqualified for obtaining. First Union then obtained an order disqualifying the second set of attorneys because they were in possession of the same documents the Fifth DCA had previously ruled were privileged. Recognizing that by now the cat was very much out of the bag, the Fifth DCA essentially shrugged its collective shoulders and quashed the trial court’s disqualification order.