When it comes to injuries caused by accidents, victims can file a personal injury claim. What is a claim for personal injury? For the uninitiated, an injury claim is an action one takes […]
Since the late 1940s, federal courts have required the parties of a lawsuit to disclose all relevant information to the other party prior to the date of trial. This process is called “discovery” and plays an essential role in the entire lawsuit. The discovery process is essentially the first phase of lawsuit preparation, and can be thought of as "fact-finding" portion.
Discovery is an essential part of any lawsuit (including personal injury suits). There are three basic forms:
Each of the above parts is a separate process with a specific set of guidelines and rules. An overview of those parts is listed below.
This part of the process includes both interrogatories and requests for admission. The best way to explain interrogatories is to describe them as questions you need to answer about your version of the facts of a case. The interrogatories can either be in a pre-printed form or they can be specific questions that are related solely to your case. The questions can be rather general in nature, but are often specific.
While requests for admission are not used very often, they can prove to be very powerful tools. If a request for admission is used, the lawyer will ask a party to either admit or deny some of the facts that pertain to the case in question. There can be penalties if they fail to answer, answer late, or answer untruthfully.
Each party is entitled to see most of the documents that are even remotely related to the case. This is particularly true in cases that involve medical malpractice or product liability because the paperwork can be rather substantial in nature. It is becoming more common for the courts to allow computer files to enter into the process of document discovery. Sometimes they may even allow the parties to reconstruct deleted files (although this practice is not as common).
During a deposition an attorney will ask questions of the party, and a court reporter will create a transcript of the conversation. The deposition can last as short as an hour or continue for a week or longer. Even though each lawyer has his or her own deposition strategy, the primary three reasons for doing them are:
There are some things you may want to keep in mind about the process of discovery, such as the following:
If you are considering filing a lawsuit and would like to better understand the discovery process, let our attorneys discuss it with you. For a free consultation regarding a personal injury case in Texas, fill out the contact form on this page or call our office (toll-free) at (214) 617-1886.
Note: The information that was utilized in this post was gathered from the use of secondary sources. This information used has not been confirmed or independently verified. If you locate any information that is not correct, please contact our firm as soon as possible so that we can make the appropriate corrections. If you find any information that is false, we will remove or correct the post immediately after it is brought to our attention.
Disclaimer: As a valued member of the Dallas community, Rasansky Law Firm’s goal is to improve the safety of all residents in the great state of Texas. These posts should not be viewed as a solicitation for business and the information included herein should not be taken as medical or legal advice. The photos used in this post are not representative of the actual crash scene.
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