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Legal Plans Protecting Your Rights: Justice For All"1A

LEGAL SHIELD LEGAL PLANS

What is Pleading?

Pleadings include a variety of legal writings that state and/or allege the opinions, positions, damages, injuries or theories of law of a party to a lawsuit that are registered with the judicial system. The most common pleadings are:

1. Accusation: A lawsuit is started by an attorney when you, or petitioner, serves the original accusation on the accused, or respondent. A complaint sets forth the basic elements of a situation including what happened and the injuries and damages incurred. It also describes the plaintiff's allegations of why the defendant is at fault for the plaintiff's injuries and damages.

2. Answer: The defendant's lawyer has an established amount of time toanswer back to the plaintiff's complaint in the form of theresponse. This is the document where the defendant admits, denies or alleges insufficient information to respond to each allegation of the plaintiff's accusation.

3. Special Defenses: These are filed with the answer. Special defenses are unique to every personal injury case. The defendant may statement the plaintiff's injuries were caused by his/her own negligence or that the plaintiff's claim is barred by the applicable statute of limitations and are defenses to the plaintiff's statement of action.

4. Counterstatements: If the defendant feels that s/he has an accusation against the plaintiff then this statement is filed along with the answer and is known as a counteraccusation.

5. Accusation for Jury Trial List: This is the point at which the plaintiff acknowledges s/he is ready for trial and advises the court of this fact.

B. Discovery

Typically, detection is the process by which attorneys for both sides "discover" all of the facts, witnesses and testimony regarding the case. During the detection process, lawyers for both parties share information about the lawsuit. This process is accomplished through written and verbal questioning as well as through the production of documents and physical examinations. In the majority of personal injury cases, the information gathered will help to convince the parties to reach some sort of out-of-court settlement instead of going through the long, drawn-out process of a trial. There are multiple ways in which lawyers gather proof:

1. Interrogatories: Interrogatories are written questions sent from one attorney to the other party to be answered to the best of their ability. These questions are answered under oath and must be sent back within a certain amount of time.

2. Request for Production: This document is sent from one lawyer to the opposing lawyer requesting that writings, pictures, bills, records, reports or other forms of evidence be produced and made available to opposing counsel.

3. Requests for Admission: Parties areallowed to require the other side to admit to certain facts under oath. Requests for admission must be answered under oath within a short time period or will be deemed to be admitted by the other side. These admissions are useful to prove obvious facts so it will not be necessary at trial to introduce additional proof to prove these already admitted facts.

4. Depositions: Along with written discovery, oral questions may be asked of the parties involved. This takes place out of court and in the form of a deposition, in which the plaintiff, the defendant, a witness, or another person involved in the case isinspected and cross-inspected by the opposing attorneys, under oath. Depositions allow attorneys to find out what witnesses are going to say in court and their answers can be used to argue down, impeach or discredit this witness. Attorneys will often call for the disclosure of the opposing counsel's expert witnesses so they can be deposed before the beginning of a trial.

5. Independent Medical Examination (IME): In a personal injury case, an important part of a plaintiff's case will be the testimony of the medical professional(s) who treated him/her. It is this evidence that tells the jury what injuries the plaintiff suffered, how they were incurred, and, in the expert opinion of the medical professional, if those injuries were causally related to the accident involving the parties. The defendant's insurance carrier will often require that the plaintiff be reviewed by a doctor of their choosing. This is seen as an opportunity to contradict, discredit, or down play the injuries that the plaintiff's treating physician indicates the plaintiff suffered and to tarnish the credibility of said physician. Do you really know your Legal Rights.