Discovery abuse

[Melissarogers]

Im a defendant in a civil case representing myself. Plaintiffs attorney saves all my emails as PDF's and all of my OWN court filings and sends them BACK to me in huge pdfs mixed up with actual discovery as a distraction of hundreds of pages of pdfs. Is this legal? Sending me my own stuff back? Making me sift through hundreds of pages that are not evidence or discovery? Isn't this discovery abuse? Is it normal to send the defendant their own paperwork BACK? I have my emails and court filings. I don't need someone to semd them back to me for no reason

 

[Taxing Matters]

Edit your post or reply to it in this thread and add a short summary of the facts and what your question is. I can't tell you anything helpful just based on a title of "Discovery abuse".

 

[Melissarogers]

Edit your post or reply to it in this thread and add a short summary of the facts and what your question is. I can't tell you anything helpful just based on a title of "Discovery abuse".

Im a defendant in a civil case representing myself. Plaintiffs attorney saves all my emails as PDF's and all of my OWN court filings and sends them BACK to me in huge pdfs mixed up with actual discovery as a distraction of hundreds of pages of pdfs. Is this legal? Sending me my own stuff back? Making me sift through hundreds of pages that are not evidence or discovery? Isn't this discovery abuse? Is it normal to send the defendant their own paperwork BACK? I have my emails and court filings. I don't need someone to semd them back to me for no reason

 

[Taxing Matters]

It is not illegal to send you that stuff. Whether it might amount to abuse of the discovery process depends on a lot of details. For example, if what they are sending you falls within the things you described in your discovery request then it is not abusive to send you what you asked for. Pro se litigants often are not very careful in how they word their discovery requests, with the result that they often get a lot of stuff they don't want but end up missing out on things they should be trying to get.

The first step here is to confer with the opposing attorney about the problem and try to work it out so that it does not happen in the future. If that doesn't solve the problem, then you can seek a court order prohibiting the document dump by the other party. But make sure that your requests are not so broad as to ask for that stuff before you go asking the court to prohibit it.

 

[Melissarogers]

It is not illegal to send you that stuff. Whether it might amount to abuse of the discovery process depends on a lot of details. For example, if what they are sending you falls within the things you described in your discovery request then it is not abusive to send you what you asked for. Pro se litigants often are not very careful in how they word their discovery requests, with the result that they often get a lot of stuff they don't want but end up missing out on things they should be trying to get.

The first step here is to confer with the opposing attorney about the problem and try to work it out so that it does not happen in the future. If that doesn't solve the problem, then you can seek a court order prohibiting the document dump by the other party. But make sure that your requests are not so broad as to ask for that stuff before you go asking the court to prohibit it.

Om

It is not illegal to send you that stuff. Whether it might amount to abuse of the discovery process depends on a lot of details. For example, if what they are sending you falls within the things you described in your discovery request then it is not abusive to send you what you asked for. Pro se litigants often are not very careful in how they word their discovery requests, with the result that they often get a lot of stuff they don't want but end up missing out on things they should be trying to get.

The first step here is to confer with the opposing attorney about the problem and try to work it out so that it does not happen in the future. If that doesn't solve the problem, then you can seek a court order prohibiting the document dump by the other party. But make sure that your requests are not so broad as to ask for that stuff before you go asking the court to prohibit it.

ok. Thank you. I by no means ever requested it. I have only requested my house documents that the plaintiff has in their possession, which they have not complied with even after court order after I filed a motion to compel. The court granted my motion and they missed the deadline on even a court order, but yes they have sent about 1200 pages of things I definitely did not ask for.
Thank you

 

[quincy]

Did you send them 1200 pages of things they did not ask for? The attorney may be sending the documents back to you because they were unrequested, unnecessary, and unwanted.

 

[Melissarogers]

Did you send them 1200 pages of things they did not ask for? The attorney may be sending the documents back to you because they were unrequested, unnecessary, and unwanted.

No. During this procedure, we were communicating by email of all the trial managent things and things we had to file with the court for mediation and such, as well as our interrogatorries. They are playing games, not wanting to give me the documents I requested because they know they are things i can use against them to disprove their claims. They are being evasive, sending me partial documents. Then they are taking ALL of our communications, saving them all down as pdfs and sending them BACK to me on discs with hundreds of pages, mixed with the little trickles of barely any of the documents i have requested. It is ridiculous. It is at about 1200 pages now they have sent me on separate discs playing this game.

 

[quincy]

Thanks for answering my question.

It could be a game the attorney is playing. Burying a pro se party in documents and motions can be a not-very-nice tactic used by a few attorneys to cause confusion. This is primarily used when a case is otherwise weak and the party is seeking an advantage. It could also be, however, poor attorney office management.

I agree with TM that you should first speak to the attorney about the mailings, detailing what you don't need sent to you. I also agree with TM that you need to be careful not to cut off the flow of material you do want sent.

Good luck.