On Nov 12, 8:44 am, Johnny <J0hn_2...@rock.com> wrote:
> As (pro-se) defendant, I have submitted interrogatories, request for
> admission of facts and request for production to plaintiff. At the
> time of this writing the response from plaintiff is now nearly a week
> over due. How should I react to this situation? Would this be grounds
> for requesting a dismissal or what?
As do many other posters, Johnny, you fail to tell us what state you're in, or even if you're in USA. OK, posters, help us out here a bit, huh, when asking specific questions about laws that vary from state to state? All you're going to be able to get are general answers that may not apply to you.
If you insist on representing yourself instead of letting a professional do it, read the rules of civil procedure applicable in your court so you know at least a little bit about what you're doing. In most jurisdictions the rules are listed in a logical sequence corresponding to the stages of a suit, beginning from general principles applicable to all actions, to filing a complaint, motion, answer, cross-claim or counterclaim, to identifying the parties, and when or if joinder of parties is either required or permitted, through the discovery phase (depositions, interrogatories, requests to produce documents for inspection and copying) through trial, not to mention post-trial motions and appeals. Before you go any farther, you need to read and understand _at_least_ all the way through the conclusion of a trial, to know the framework for what will or can happen in your case. Don't know what set of rules are applicable in your case? Ask the court clerk, or a local law librarian. Your courthouse probably has a law library open to the public for research, and your local public library may even have copies of the local court rules. If you don't understand the rules, or even if you do, read some of the reported case opinions (cited in the annotations that appear in most printed volumes of procedure rules) that interpret those rules, to find out how courts in your state really apply them. (The annotations just contain the name and volume/page reference citation for the case and sometimes a very brief capsule summary of its holding. Find and read the actual case, since the capsule descriptions are not always right-on.)
That said, your rules will tell you what your options are when an opponent has failed to provide requested discovery. In many states you have a choice of filing a motion to compel answers (which is what you're likely to get in any case), or filing a motion for immediate sanctions in certain failures of discovery (complete failure to answer a set of interrogatories is usually one of those circumstances that will allow this). However, a court is not likely to throw your plaintiff;s case out of court just because he is a week late in answering. The judge is likely to just order him to respond within a certain additional time -- if trial is looming, that could make a difference, but you didn't say that was a factor. Then, if he still doesn't answer after being specifically ordered to do so by the court, you are more likely to have some success if you file another motion for sanctions based on his violation of the court's order compelling discovery. Sanctions typically can include dismissal, but that is rarely the first choice judges will reach for, because the law prefers that cases be heard on their merits, not won or lost by some procedural mistake. Instead, the judge is more likely to rule that plaintiff be barred from producing certain evidence if he didn't reveal it to you in discovery, or rule that certain contentions of yours be taken as established if plaintiff failed to come up with evidence contradicting them in discovery, and so on.
Anyway, good luck. If you're pro se, you'll need it. But I suppose if the plaintiff is pro se too, you'll both need it.
--
This posting is for discussion purposes, not professional advice.
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Mike Jacobs
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