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In this lesson, you will learn what a motion to compel is, when to file one, and what you may include in the motion.
Note that a motion to compel may require a hearing.
Steps when filing a Motion to Compel
- Review objections
- Negotiate compliance
- Check the rules
- Research and write
- File and serve
- Schedule a hearing
Transcript
What happens when a party objects or does not respond at all to discovery?
Well, the opposing party can move for an order to make the other side answer.
The motion to compel seeks the court order to make a party comply with the discovery request.
In many jurisdictions, you\’re required to communicate to the other party before moving to compel discovery.
That is you have to make some attempts to get them to comply with your discovery request. Before filing a motion to compel.
You can do this with a phone call, via email or letter.
Be aware also that a motion to compel usually requires a hearing.
Well, how do you produce a motion to compel?
Once you\’ve got your discovery responses, review what you have, write down any objections to your request, any non-answers, any answers you consider inadequate, any improperly redacted documents should be noted, any documents with missing pages, and so on. Everything that you feel you want to challenge in your motion to compel.
And then determine which of those objections you\’re actually going to include in your motion.
You wanna review your rules of civil procedure, any local rules, any previous orders from your judge about the discovery process.
The rules will tell you whether there is some precondition or prerequisite to filing your motion to compel. As we discussed earlier, in many jurisdictions, you\’re required to make a good-faith effort to simply contact the responding party and ask them to provide better discovery responses before you file your motion to compel.
But for each non-answer or objection or anything else that you want to include in your motion to compel, retype the specific discovery request, retype the request exactly as you asked it. And then write the response that you received, whether it\’s an objection, whether it is a non-answer or a partial answer, write that down as well. And then follow it with a short explanation for why you need a better response. That\’s your argument to the court about why you should have a better response to your discovery.
Now this is all primarily for written discovery.
In depositions, when you are moving to compel there, the matter is typically handled during the deposition itself, where one party may object to a question, and the judge has to be called in to resolve a matter. When you\’re conducting a deposition, you want to have the judicial assistant on standby, in case there is an objection to a question.
In that instance, the judicial assistant is often able to get a quick order on that question and answer, without stopping the deposition.
But if that\’s not the case, you can, in the deposition, ask the court to certify the question that you\’ve asked and that the opponent will not answer, and you can use that question in your motion to compel a better response.
Now in your motion to compel, you want to identify the parties – that is, you are the plaintiff or defendant. The other side is the plaintiff or defendant. You want to provide a short summary of the facts. Include only the most relevant facts in your motion to compel. Don\’t overdo it there.
But again, you\’ll provide a brief description of the relevant facts, you will share with the court a list of document categories that you\’ve requested.
You can also organize your motion by the types of information that have been sought.
If there\’s an objection made by the respondent or a non-answer, you want to list that with each of the items that you are moving to compel.
And then as we said, a short paragraph about the relevance of your request. That is, why should the court order the other side to provide the requested information?
Now we recommend waiting for all of your responses or at least the due date on your discovery request to pass before you file your motion to compel. In other words, you don\’t want to file a motion to compel solely on your request for admissions or solely on your request for production.
Wait until all of your discovery requests, have been returned to you.
Or if there\’s not going to be a response, wait until the due dates have passed, and then file a single motion to compel.
You will file the motion and schedule a hearing on your motion.