Legal News

Federal Rule 26 has been  amended to remove the language  “reasonably calculated to lead to  the discovery of admissible  evidence,” which has long been the standard of obtaining, and objected to, discovery requests among opposing sides in a civil suit.

The new rule indicates that parties may obtain discovery on any nonprivileged, relevant matter in consideration of the importance of that information to the lawsuit, the amount in controversy, the parties’ relative access to relevant information, the parties’ respective resources, the importance of the information in resolving the issues in the case, and whether the burden or expense of the proposed discovery outweighs the potential benefit. 

 The purpose of the amendment is to reduce the tendency to slow-track litigation through use of arduous and cumbersome discovery requests, and instead encourage litigants to focus their efforts on obtaining that evidence which is most likely to lead to a result, whether through the mediation process, or in preparation or use of the evidence at a trial of the case.

Legal News