Discovery Rights Research Page
Protecting access to information is critical to public health
and safety cases.
The quest for proof in products liability cases might remind us
of two rhetorical gems of 1960s pop culture. In 1965, Bob Dylan
advised us that “when you got nothing, you got nothing to lose.”
Two years later, chain-gang prisoner Paul “Cool Hand Luke”
Newman made some of us feel a bit better by assuring us that “sometimes
nothin’ can be a real cool hand.” Neither Bob nor Luke
was a products liability lawyer.
If there are situations in which “nothin’ can be a real
cool hand,” proving liability in the courtroom is not among
them. In court, “when you got nothing” by way of evidence
of liability, you and your client have everything to lose—and
you will.
It is hardly surprising, then, that there are squads of lawyers
whose main occupation is ensuring that plaintiff lawyers with products
liability cases have nothing in the way of proof—or as close
to nothing as can be achieved. It’s their job, and many of
them are very good at it. Lately
they’ve been getting too good at it for comfort, and the
ever-increasing contraction of discovery rights through court rule
amendments helps them to keep secret information that will prove
the products liability case.
Relevant Articles and Research
-
Limiting Access to Electronic Evidence
Could Shrink Consumer Rights, Enable Secrecy
-
When It Comes to E-Discovery,
Who's On Your Side?
-
Preserve Our Clients'
Discovery Rights (Todd A. Smith, Trial Magazine,
Vol. 41(1), 11/04)
-
Will e-discovery
get squeezed? (James E. Rooks, Jr., Trial Magazine,
Vol 40(12), 11/04)
-
Taking
the Fear Factor Out of Email (BusinessWeek, 12/04).
-
Linda
S. Mullenix, Discovery in Disarray: the Pervasive Myth of
Pervasive Discovery Abuse and the Consequences for Unfounded
Rulemaking, 6 Stan.L.Rev.
1393 (1994).
