Q: Defendant's groundless attempts to obtain utterly irrelevant to claimed damages medical information

A: Under California law, a defendant's groundless attempts to obtain medical information that is utterly irrelevant to the claimed damages would likely be seen as an improper invasion of the plaintiff's privacy rights.

If the court denies the defendant's motion to compel production of the medical records, the defendant should not proceed to subpoena the records anyway. Doing so could be viewed as a violation of court orders and could subject the defendant and their counsel to sanctions.

If the plaintiff files a motion for a protective order to prevent disclosure of the irrelevant medical information, this would provide an additional legal basis to block the defendant's attempts. The protective order would expressly prohibit the defendant from seeking the records.

As for why a very experienced attorney would pursue a seemingly pointless motion to compel medical records, a few potential explanations come to mind:

1. Zealous advocacy taken too far - the attorney may be trying to leave no stone unturned and is seeking any potentially relevant information, even if the relevance is extremely attenuated.

2. Strategic reasons - prolonging discovery, imposing costs on the other side, pressuring for settlement, or distracting from key issues by fixating on the medical records dispute.

3. Fishing expedition - looking for other potential avenues of defense or counterclaim by examining the plaintiff's overall medical history, even if not directly related to the claimed damages in the case.

4. Client insistence - the attorney may be following express client instructions to pursue every possible angle, even against the attorney's advice that the motion is unlikely to succeed.

5. Lack of familiarity with privacy laws - even experienced attorneys can sometimes pursue misguided discovery if they are not well-versed in the particular privacy restrictions in that jurisdiction or area of law.

Ultimately, if the medical records are clearly irrelevant to the specific damages claimed in the case, the court should deny any motion to compel their production, and a protective order can provide added insulation against invasive discovery attempts. The defendant's attorney is unlikely to have a proper basis for seeking the records if they are utterly irrelevant.