Motion to compel discovery and plaintiff response to Discovery

[antiquedave]

So how would you respond to the Plaintiff's response to discovery where 99% of the response was an objection as to the request being overly broad unduly burdensome vague unclear or not calculated to lead to the discovery of admissable evidence.

I was not surprised btw

[fightemdontfold]

From what I have read, you need to send them a communication infomring them that their anwsers are evasive and not satisfactory. You have to give them like 10 to 14 days to respond back with amended anwsers.

I am in the same situation you are. They sent me back no documentation and only a few anwsers with many claims of "unduly burdensome" and 11 times they said they are still gathering stuff. Basically what I am going to do is prepare a attempt to confer next week and send it off to them. Based on my belief that the court really doesn't care how long the discovery process takes, I am not even going to try to hold them to the 10 to 14 days to get back, they will simply continue to ask for more time and I am only going to get frustrated and angered by the court's disregard for my time. I am just going to sit back and wait to see if the clowns can come up with anything and if they try to move forward with something without anwsering my requests for amended anwsers, I am sure I will be able to bring that up later, the fact that they haven't provided any proof of their claims during discovery.

If you think they might be able to come up with something, perhaps you should be more aggresive in trying to push them to provide proof in a certain time frame, but through my experiance it seems like they can just angle for delays over and over. The court seems not interested in making any judgements if the plaintiff doesn't wish to move on from the discovery phase.

[antiquedave]

I've been preparing a series of motions to address what I thought would be happening, I can't afford to spread them out, I'm thinking that I'm going to go ahead and submit what I have and try to get a motion hearing about 3 or 4 weeks down the road.

So far there have not been any surprises for me, they've been predictable according to everything that I have read

If they were gathering documents that would be okay, but I'm just getting blown off and thats not okay

[fightemdontfold]

Good luck to you, I guess alot of the time when it comes to things like this it depends on the judge. Discovery is a process that the courts would rather the parties resolve outside of court. But there are supposed avenues to have the court intervene if one party is not complying, like a motion to compel, but I think it comes down to the judge.

In my case I got a real good vibe from the judge, he really doesn't give a damn about how long the discovery process takes or if they ever produce any proof prior to the trial phase.

Maybe your judge will be different. Just keep in mind that you might not want to repeatedly get motions denied as that might put you in a bad light with the judge. That is what led me to decide to just sit back and let it ride and see if they will come forward with anything, I didn't want to file another motion and just get it denied due to the JDB claiming discovery is not over yet.

I like you have done alot of reading and many of the JDB's just throw in the towel if they don't get a default as a result of you filing an anwser and if they fail to get anything to use against you as a result of a defendant fouling up discovery. The fact that the idiots haven't tried to file for a MSJ and that they seem to be up a creek without a paddle as far as it being three and a half months and they have provided zippo documentation to back anything makes me feel like I have done very well to this point.

The thing is if the defendant in these cases doesn't respond in time to the discovery sent to them, I would doubt that the court would show much leniency. I guess they get to jerk you around with discovery as long as they want as part of their admission ($$$ it cost them to file)

Edited March 12, 2011 by fightemdontfold

[fightemdontfold]

One other thing, do you have to pay to file a motion in your state??? Luckily in my state you don't have to pay anything.

[Chapel Hill]

If you have a bias judge you are not without recourse. If in your case the other party is not complying with discovery rules as articulated in the local rules, code of civil procedure and other applicable statutes and rules of court in your particular jurisdiction you need to move forward by motion. Go to a local law library and seek out competent trial counsel. Write tight motions. Plead up motions based on your research in the law library of motions you have paid for from a trial litigator who's work you have reviewed. File your motions and be prepared to go into open court and argue your motions. Anyone on this board can tell you to cut and paste this and that. If they don't also tell you that you should be able to stand toe to toe with anyone arguing the other side then they haven't given you adequate counsel. You aren't expected to cram 3 years of law school into a motion hearing however if you can't defend what you pled you're gonna lose your motion unnecessarily. Case law, the facts in your case and your overall legal strategy you should be expert in.

In the case of a bias judge, this is the key. Use a pleading guide, write a tight motion and if this BIAS jurist rules against you then evidence exists for not only an appeal of every decision by this jurist in your matter but action against the jurist. Not monetary action but you can use the mechanism of your state to deal with judges that make crappy decisions. Every singe state has a mechanism in place. It's up to you to do your due dilligence to find that resource and take action.

So hold the other side to task with respect to discovery. Send over meet and confer documents. Make phone calls. Send emails. Once you have sufficient evidence of your due dilligence then file on their a$$. Go in, argue your motion and win. Once you have an order compelling their compliance if they don't send over reasonable discovery responses, tag their a$$ again with motion for sanctions. Chances are you won't get a cash payment but that isn't your goal. What you should want as part of your overall legal strategy is to hit the other side in their checkbook.

[antiquedave]

Yes we have to pay 20.00 to file motions, one cost for all submitted at the same time.

While I certainly don't want to get the judge upset with me, I don't know any other way to learn how things will work locally except to test the waters.

I'm pushing on some areas that may have interest to others too, I'm keeping good records and even if I go down in flames hopefully others will benefit from what I can learn and share.

[fightemdontfold]

I'd say you are doing the right thing dave, especially if this is the first motion/court date you are going for. I do think it is only in the novice pro se's favor to "test the waters" as you say later on, at least very little harm can be done.

I filed a motion to dismiss early on before the discovery period had expired, the first 30 day wait before the extension they got. Well I learned early on that you had to request a court date for that motion,lol, and when the motion was dismissed by the plaintiff saying it was untimely I also got a good template for any future response I might need to make against a motion from the plaintiff, the plaintiff's response to my motion. I am also glad I didn't learn later on that I had to ask for the court date. I also was heartened by the fact that I had written my motion well enough to have the plaintiff respond even though I hadn't even asked for a court date, never actually writing a motion beforehand, that made me feel good that what I had done was proper and good enough.

So yeah, you can test the waters and gain some insight in doing so even if you don't get it dismissed or if you don't get them to speed up the discovery process. You also make them aware that you are going to be tougher than the average default and that you will intend to keep them busy. Perhaps that alone will provoke them to just drop it.

[antiquedave]

They have not proven that they are entitled or the proper plaintiff in order to bring the suit to begin with and refused to address it thus far in discovery so in my way of thinking if they can't prove they have standing what are we doing here?

I've spent that past month preparing multiple responses to multiple scenarios and have anxiously awaited their responses this month.

[BV80]

Is this the case where you brought up securitization, and the judge expressed an interest?

[antiquedave]

Is this the case where you brought up securitization, and the judge expressed an interest?

yep it is

The new complaints and summons being issued now say that Cap 1 was "assigned the account in the normal course of business."

Now to me if Cap 1 has to state they were assigned the account in order to pursue the lawsuit that proves it was sold, possibly more than once, and that there is a chain of assignments with dates that would show who had the account and when and could prove multiple parties having violations of FDCPA depending on what they did and when they did it.

To me if the account was "assigned" to Cap 1 it could change their legal standing and relegate them to a JDB status.

To me it could show that Cap 1 has filed materially false documents in thousands of lawsuits. Being able to get the chain of assignments is what I am pursuing but I have doubts I will ever get them on my own.

[BV80]

The new complaints and summons being issued now say that Cap 1 was "assigned the account in the normal course of business."

Who was the cc originally with?

[fightemdontfold]

LOL..."what are we doing here".. I like that. I think that the truth of that query would be that they thought they could get a default and now that you have squashed that possibility they are not prepared, ready or able to provide anything.

It sounds like you have some unique circumstances in your case, perhaps you could use the possible violations on consumer protection law to get them to drop it quicker than they would, you would have to consult the brains on here for that advice on whether you can do that.

[antiquedave]

I don't think its that unique, its more of a fools rush in where angels fear to tread. I'm trying some things probably because I don't know any better.

Even if challenging the OC's standing and ownership doesn't do anything else it did get me through the pre trial, avoid a MSJ and get me discovery and a trial date.

I've written a dozen letters of complaint to State and Federal Agencies and elected officials as well, at some point I may try to get the regional TV stations involved. In a previous job I used to get them to cover events and press releases about 5 or 6 times a year so I understand how they make decisions on stories, its whether I want to put my ugly mug out there again or not. I think there are some stories here that need to be told though.

I'm hitting this from every point I can