Law Commons^™

The Practitioner’S Guide To Properly Responding To Requests For Disclosure Under The Texas Discovery Rules, Robert K. Wise, Kennon L. Wooten

St. Mary's Law Journal

Discovery, a pretrial procedure used to obtain information relating to the litigation, generally is the largest cost of civil litigation. By its very nature, discovery also is intrusive and invasive. Many practitioners are quick to dispute discovery requests, slow to produce information requested, and all too-eager to object at every stage of the discovery process.

This article relates to one of the most common types of written discovery—Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 194 disclosure requests, the responses to which are often incomplete and inadequate. Disclosure requests provide inexpensive, basic discovery without the delay relating to objections or work-product assertions. This …

Informing A Jury Of The Legal Effect Of Its Answers., James G. Denton

St. Mary's Law Journal

Limiting jury consideration to facts, as opposed to the outcome, best serves special issue systems. The purpose of the special issues system is to ensure juries answer the presented questions without bias or prejudice. Though several writers have persuasively advocated for advising juries of the consequences of their findings, doing so seems to undermine the purpose of special issue systems because it allows for juries to answer questions with reference to their desired outcome. To ensure juries answer issues on the facts alone, trial judges should not give a jury, directly or indirectly, any information that may apprise them of …