You have all likely seen movies that show companies (usually large ones) exploit the discovery phase of litigation – sending so much material to the other side that they are both swamped with meaningless documents. The plots of these movies have them do it for various reasons, such as “hiding” the “real” evidence, increasing the costs of less wealthy party so they can’t afford to proceed, etc. Generally, movies exaggerate a theme, but can companies exploit discovery? Many courts have begun restricting discovery. For instance, in Utah, you are now limited to the number of things you can request. Do rules limiting discovery hurt or help litigation? Thoughts?

Over the years, the discovery phase of litigation has been converted from a tool for gaining facts of a case into a tactical weapon by large companies (Hubbard, 2014). The process of discovery abuse mainly involves the utility of excess or inappropriate discovery elements to demean, bring up delays and cause havoc to opponents filing a case against the defendant. This is mainly carried out to frustrate the weaker party for them to cancel the court proceeding. These predatory practices have been quite rampant, and the same is shown in fictional movies to illustrate that it is a menace which is hard to eradicate.  Rules can help solve this issue by ensuring that the levels of discovery do not demean less wealthy party from having justice; this utterly helps improve the process of litigation.

References

Hubbard, W. H. (2014). The Discovery Sombrero and Other Metaphors for Litigation. Cath. UL Rev., 64, 867.