Daniel Ortega, driving an Old Dominion Freight Line (ODFL) truck, made a left turn from an uncontrolled driveway onto a street and collided with Christina Solano, who sued ODFL and Ortega for negligence and gross negligence, including claims against ODFL for negligent hiring, retention, entrustment, training, and supervision.¹ ODFL stipulated that Ortega was in the course and scope of his employment and says he had a spotless driving record for six years before the accident.² The one discovery request left in dispute, Request for Production No. 37, asks for the employment application, job description, offer letter, training records and performance evaluations of the two people ODFL identified as Ortega's supervisors, with redaction of personal information allowed.³ Solano says the records bear on how ODFL selected, trained and monitored the supervisors responsible for enforcing the safety policies governing Ortega's conduct, which goes to her gross-negligence claim.⁴

The trial court granted Solano's motion to compel as to Request No. 37 on September 19, 2025, and denied ODFL's motion to reconsider on November 7, 2025.¹ The Fifth Court of Appeals (Dallas) denied mandamus without calling for a response in a March 18, 2026 memorandum opinion, with Justice Lee dissenting.² The Supreme Court stayed the order and set the case for oral argument on June 19, 2026, and on October 2, 2026 it granted a motion to dismiss in part and dismissed the petition while declining to vacate the court of appeals' opinion.

Original proceeding (petition for writ of mandamus) after the Dallas Court of Appeals denied relief; stay granted and argument set for December 1, 2026. On October 2, 2026 the Court granted a motion to dismiss in part and dismissed the petition, denying the request to vacate the court of appeals' opinion (Orders, Oct. 2, 2026).

• ODFL:¹ whether the trial court clearly abused its discretion by ordering production of private, irrelevant personnel files of non-party supervisors that are not narrowly tailored to the case.
• Solano:² whether the single request, tied to her pleaded gross-negligence claims, is a proper discovery request that ODFL cannot defeat by asserting that the claims lack merit.

Mandamus is available when a trial court compels discovery beyond what the rules allow because there is no adequate appellate remedy, and ODFL argues this is especially so for private material such as personnel files.¹ Solano says the burden on the party resisting discovery is a heavy one, requiring a ruling so arbitrary and unreasonable as to amount to a clear and prejudicial error of law.²

Whether the supervisors' files are relevant and narrowly tailored.

Old Dominion (Relator): Discovery may not be a fishing expedition and requests must be tailored to matters relevant to the case, and nothing in the supervisors' files goes to whether Ortega made a bad left turn, so whole personnel files, which are classic "other acts" evidence with no similarity, timing or connection requirement, are overbroad.¹ In re Contract Freighters and In re UPS Ground Freight control because they rejected requests for irrelevant information about uninvolved drivers in a single-driver accident.²

Christina Solano (Real Party in Interest): The single request is tailored to the pleaded claims that ODFL was grossly negligent in training and supervising Ortega, claims the Legislature preserved in Chapter 72 notwithstanding a course-and-scope stipulation, and ODFL never tested those claims by special exceptions, a motion to dismiss or summary judgment.³ The order is limited to specific documents from the files of two employees ODFL itself identified as involved in Ortega's hiring, training, and supervision.⁴

Whether ODFL preserved and can show an abuse of discretion.

Christina Solano (Real Party in Interest): ODFL filed no response to the motion to compel and gave the appellate courts no record of the hearing, which limits the ability to discern an abuse of discretion.⁵

ODFL argued that this Court has repeatedly held that orders compelling overbroad discovery are reviewable by mandamus, that personnel files are among the most sensitive categories of corporate information, and that the court of appeals' reasoning would authorize discovery into generalized corporate character evidence.¹

None noted