hello class this is professor bryant with the great fayetteville state university this is the legal environment of business this is the continuation of a series of lectures in this course today we're going to talk about the stages of litigation the stages of litigation and in just a broad sense we're going to be talking about the pleading stage the discovery stage and the trial stage okay and when we're talking about the stages of litigation we're going to be talking about civil civil litigation for those of you who don't know what civil litigation is go back to the previous lecture look at the glossary in your book and we're talking about civil litigation as opposed to criminal litigation you know you know criminal litigation is when somebody commits a crime and the the government or the the attorney the district attorney goes after them uh and takes charges against them and they have a trial they're trying to put that person in jail that's criminal that's that's criminal litigation all right we're talking about civil litigation where i as an individual or you as an individual somebody has harmed you in some way and you sue that person seeking some type of money damage some type of remedy for the harm that's been caused okay and we've been through that in a previous lecture so i'm not going to go through that again but today we're talking about civil civil litigation and the stages of it we're going to be talking about pleading stage the discovery stage and the trial stage how does the lawsuit start well let's start back before this first thing this is first sentences plaintiff files that complain and gets a summons issued against the defendant but let's start before that most of the time people start out by hiring a lawyer right they go to the law office and they talk to a lawyer the lawyer you know decides if he's going to represent them or not the lawyer the lawyer most of most of the time if it's a if it's an injury case like a personal injury case like the kind of stuff you guys see on tv those ambulance chaser lawyers on tv where they're just trying to chase down these personal injury cases most of the time what they will do is they will is they will charge a third or contingent fee contingency fee and basically what they say is what you see in the advertisement you know we don't collect unless you collect we're going to take a third or 40 of what you recover but if you don't recover anything then then then we don't recover anything right most of the time in those personal injury cases the lawyers put the fee the lawyers will advance the fees up front and when the case settles or resolves at jury trial then the lawyer will um then the lawyer will take his cut first and then he'll take the fees out and then whatever medical bills whatever make sure the doctors are paid and then whatever is left you get okay so anyhow you hire a lawyer first the next stage is plaintiff files a complaint and gets a summons issued okay what is a complaint and what is the summons okay a complaint is a is an official document it's not something not just something you write out and say oh i'm complaining because they did me wrong no when we in the law when we say complaint we know that there's an official document it's got certain elements certain certain things to it that must be in the complaint if you're going to sue somebody okay you must have a statement in the complaint about the parties who are the parties to the to the lawsuit who is the plaintiff the person suing and who is the defendant the person who is getting sued okay you must have a a statement in there about jurisdiction do you remember jurisdiction from a previous law from a a previous lecture jurisdiction the issue of which court has the power to enforce a judgment so you have to have something in there about why this court has jurisdiction this case happened in north carolina and i'm suing under north carolina state law and therefore this court has jurisdiction something in there so the court can establish jurisdiction because without jurisdiction the judgment is void all right then you have to have the facts look you don't have to have everything that happened in the world to you in the last 20 years but you do have to have the facts that establish the basis for your claim right if it's a medical malpractice claim you have to have facts about uh when you went to when you went to the to the operating room what the doctor was supposed to be operating on you're supposed to be you know um removing a bunion from your toe and when you came out the operating room you realized the doctor made a mistake he removed one of your kidneys and now you want to sue the doctor you know you got to have some facts in there about what happened if it's cars in the case got to have facts that that uh somebody was you know was not paying attention somebody was negligently driving and they ran into the rear view and when they ran into the rear view on july 1st whatever year it was when it ran into the rear of you they called you know they caused you to have a you know um i don't know a slip disc in your back you had to go to the doctor they destroyed your car you missed you missed time from work you got medical bills you got pain and suffering you got permanent injury you have to allege those facts in the complaint and then a very important part of the complaint is what we call the elements of the cause of action okay if you're showing somebody from medical malpractice lawyers we know that there are certain elements there are certain things that must be alleged in that complaint when you're showing somebody from medical malpractice if you don't allege what you must allege in that complaint that complaint could be subject to dismissal like north carolina has this quirk north carolina has a quirk and medical malpractice law and i'm gonna i'm gonna do it real brief okay the quirk is if you follow a medical malpractice lawsuit in north carolina you must allege that prior to filing the lawsuit you had an expert who was qualified to testify as an expert and that expert stated in writing that it is his opinion that the doctor committed medical malpractice if you don't allege that make that allegation in your complaint i don't care how bad the doctor hurt you i don't care how clear it is if you don't alleging your complaint that an expert has reviewed this case prior to filing this expert is willing testified that the doctor violated the standard of care if you don't allege that your complaint is subject to dismissal when the defendant files an answer he'll file a motion to dismiss and the court will dismiss your lawsuit why because north carolina requires the allegation in there if you're suing the the uh a state government right states have certain what we call immunity immunities right immunity they can be immune from suit if you if you don't allege certain things like they purchased insurance and therefore they waived immunity or if you don't unless something like a police officer when a police officer falsely arrested me he acted with malice if you don't allege certain certain special terms certain elements then your lawsuit could be subject to dismissal right so so so so a complaint has to have the whatever law you're assuming based on if it's negative it's medical malpractice you know salt battery whatever it is in that complaint in addition to the the the people that are the parties in addition to the jurisdiction in addition to the facts you got to have the elements of the cause of action that you that you're stating and then you have a section in what we call prayer for relief prayer for relief is basically what do you want the court to give you um what are you asking for at the end of the day i'm asking for for compensation in excess of of of 75 000 i'm asking for punitive damage compensatory damage i'm asking for an injunction you have to have in there what you want the court to give you for relief okay okay that's the complaint look the complaint the complaint is prepared by by you and your lawyer basically by your lawyer after talking to you that's the complaint the lord is going to sign prepared the lord is going to sign it okay all right that is one part of what we call process p-r-o-c-e-s-s that's one part of process the other part of process is what we call the summons the summons now the summons must be distinguished from the subpoena the summons versus subpoena most of you have heard about a subpoena that's where there's a trial going on you get a subpoena to show up if you know the according on a certain day for hearing or something like that that's a subpoena we're not talking about a subpoena we're talking about a summons s-u-m-m-o-n-s a summons is a document that when you when you file the complaint you also must get the court the clerk of court to issue what you call a summons that summons is a paper sign not signed by your lawyer it's signed by the clerk of court and that someone says look attached to this summons that you're getting is basically a letter from the clerk of court to the defendant all right and it says attached to this to this summons that you're getting is a complaint that has been filed by the plaintiff you have 30 days north carolina law 30 days federal law 20 days you have 30 days to answer this complaint if you do not answer this complaint within 30 days of you receiving this of service upon you then the plaintiff will move forward and the plaintiff will be able to get a default judgment against you what does that mean that means if i properly serve you with a summons and complaint and you don't take the time to answer within 30 days i can go to court and say judge i circled on they didn't answer in 30 days now give me what i ask for and the court can enter a default d-e-f-a-u-l-t and default judgment against you for whatever amount there is okay all right okay so uh you get you have the complaint and the sum as we talked about the plaintiff must the plaintiff sends the complaint and the summons or serves the complaint back up the plaintiff serves the complaint and summons on the defendant serves the complaint and summons on the defendant so what does that mean well to serve service of process means to actually legally get the document to the person i'm going to talk to you about north carolina services process because in north carolina everybody doesn't have a right to to go hand a summons a complaint to a to a defendant in north carolina only the sheriff's department has a right to to serve a complaint and assignments on a defendant by hand delivery only the sheriff so if you're in north carolina if you want to start a lawsuit if you get uh if you uh if you go over and you uh see the person and you hand them say and you say to them hey you've been served that that's that's that's nothing the only person that can personally serve a defendant in north carolina with a complaint in the summons is the sheriff's department now under federal law just a quick quirk under federal law anybody over the age of 21 can do it but in in state law it has to be the sheriff's department that personally serves somebody but personal service is not the only type of service you can also have service by registered mail so some sometimes i might have a share might send it to the sheriff's department say go serve this this defendant but sometimes i might say look i'll serve it myself put it in an envelope mark that envelope uh mail that envelope to him market registered mail return receipt requested send it to the defendant and the defendant signed if the defendant signs for that envelope then that's personal service okay i mean excuse me that's serviced by registered mail you're with me on that what if what if i send it to the defendant and when it gets to the defendant's house the defendant's wife signs for the mail and i look at it as not the defendant's signature it's his wife's signature that's not good service right when you're serving it by a certified mail registered mail certified mail when you're serving it like that the defendant must sign for it for it to be good service if the defendant does not sign for it then it's not good service and you can go through the whole lawsuit get a judgment against the defendant that's going to be void at the end of the day but just because you did not properly get service okay all right now let me back up a little bit the sheriff's department can serve it on you personally or the sheriff's department can go to your home and talk to your wife and the sheriff's department can determine that your wife is a person of suitable age and discretion and will be able to get that can notify you that that the summons the complaint was delivered the sheriff's department can leave a copy can leave that summons a complaint with your wife that's going to be good service if the sheriff's department does it okay but that's not going to be good service if the wife signs for certified mail everybody good with that okay and then let's talk uh real quickly about what about when we serve a corporation how about serving the corporation because a corporation has people that work for it has a board of directors but i mean how do you serve a corporation that's just a legal entity well the way you serve a corporation is is corporations have to have to file something with the north carolina secretary of state that says this person is my registered agent so if i want to sue a corporation i go to the north carolina secretary of state's website i find that corporation and i look and see who they designated as the registered agent all right and i use that address and that name and i send it to that registered agent certified mail and when that registered agent signs for it then that's good service that's just like i got good service on a corporation you can also get service on a corporation by serving uh a member of the board of directors or a manager or something like that but the best way to do it is by is by serving them by uh registered registered mail to the to the registered agent okay all right so that's two ways what about this third way publication what what if i've done everything i can do i've already i've tried i sent the sheriff to the last known address the sheriff can't find him sure if he's done his due diligence sends it back to me says look i can't find this guy i don't know where he is so i'm sending it back to you because i can't find it then i sent a certified mail to the last two or three addresses that i've known i can't find the guy the guy nobody knows the guy the post office returns and says hey there's no person in this name any of these addresses is the case over no the case isn't over once i've done due diligence and i file an affidavit with the court saying look i've tried to locate this guy by the sheriff's department i've tried to locate this guy by certified mail and and i've sent it to the last known addresses and i can't find them anywhere and then i have a right to serve the person by publication what is publication i put a notice in the newspaper uh basically i put up no the rule is i put a notice in the newspaper and the in the uh county where the person last lived okay and then when i put a notice in the really supposed to be the largest newspaper in the county where the person lived there's there's some requirements about how much readership the newspaper must have and all this other stuff let's put a notice in the newspaper and it says look uh you you have 45 days whatever the rule is i think it's 45 days from the date that this was first placed into the newspaper you have until this date to file an answer to the lawsuit i filed against you if you don't file an answer within this period of time then i'm going to move forward to the court and get a default judgment against you okay i'm going to move forward and get a judgment just like i just like the sheriff served you just like if you signed a piece of a certified mail okay all right and so a service by publication when it is properly done this service by public publication is good service and you can move forward and get a judgment against somebody when you serve them by publication okay three ways personal service by the sheriff certified mail to the individual or to the registered agent okay and then if those two don't don't work you can serve somebody by publication any questions interesting i'll tell you a quick interesting story uh and the issue is if you do not get proper service then then any judgment you get is void well how about a man that wanted to have wanted to divorce his wife and uh you know i don't know if you guys know when people get divorced then not only do they get divorced but they get a property property division you know 50 50 north carolina you know equitable distribution basically says that people get 50 50. right so the wife was entitled to 50 of his retirement 50 of his bank account 50 of his real estate and all sort of stuff and the guy was like look i want a divorce i just don't want her getting half so he he tried so he got a divorce without really letting his wife know okay his wife had been separated for a while so what he did instead of doing public hate instead of serving her by sheriff with the divorce instead of serving her by certified male he went straight to publication and he did a publication in the county where the wife never lived so so so even though and where the wife never lived so what does that mean that means that yeah he did publication but he did it in a county where the wife never lived he never filed the affidavits he never did the due diligence on the other two issues so what so he never got proper service but he went to court told the court he did have proper service and the judge gave him a divorce okay and then he got remarried and so the first wife first of all i was telling people look i never got divorced i know he says he's remarried but we never got divorced and so his second marriage is void in north carolina you can't have two marriages in north carolina if you're married in first marriage if in second marriage if the first marriage was never properly divorced your second marriage is void because you cannot have be married to two people in north carolina and so what happened is 20 years later the man dies and he and his second wife have a home they've got bank accounts and all this other stuff and of course he's got retirement he's got social security benefits and the second wife thinks he's entitled to it the first white step steps in and says well no i'm the wife this lady's been living with him but she's not the wife we never got divorced and so of course what did they do they go to the courthouse they pull up the documents and they sit they see oh yeah you did get divorced she says no i was never served i was never served so since i was never served any divorce judgment is void and lo and behold when the court went back and looked there the court said yes there's no affidavit in here saying he tried the sheriff there's an affidavit in here saying that he tried that he tried by uh certified mail and then the court said hold it in addition to that there's no there's nothing in here that this lady ever lived in the county where he filed the publication you have to file a publication in the county where the person lived he filed it in another county so therefore she's right 20 years ago when we gave a judgment of divorce that judgment is void because the wife was never properly served that means that the first wife gets the benefits second wife get out the house i mean that's not funny but you know it is it's not okay all right so so that's service that's that's service okay if the complaint is not properly served then any judgment any judgment not just divorce judgment any judgment is what we call void okay all right so this all of this right here complaining someone's that's what we call service of process that serves a process now look the complaint the complaint is a pleading the complaint is a pleading we're pleading with the court we're pleading with the government to provide us some type of relief okay all right so then the defendant must file what we call an answer within 30 days remember someone said you must answer within 30 days the defendant must file an answer just like the complaint is a formal document has to have certain formal things in it right the answer is the same thing the answer must you must respond to each factual allegation by saying i that that i admit this allegation or i deny this allegation you must respond to each legal each legal allegation by saying we admit to this legal allegation or we deny this legal allegation okay you must respond to every paragraph in that complaint okay and that's what a defendant does in the answer he responds to everything you say admit deny admit did not admit deny okay all right so and then what the the answer also normally normally contains the answer normally contains some type of motion to dismiss remember before when i was telling you that the courts require that you play that you put the elements of whatever cause of action you must state the legal basis for your action or the elements of that of that lawsuit of that legal claim in the complaint if you don't state the elements in the complaint then the defendant will file a motion to dismiss or include a motion to dismiss and the answer that he files and at some point the court is going to have to deal with his motion to dismiss and there's different basis for motion to dismiss i don't want to get to all of them but basically emotion to dismiss can be following an answer the other thing in the answer we have certain affirmative defenses affirmative defenses like for instance for instance uh an affirmative defense um maybe if somebody is saying that um um somebody's saying that that um that i called that that that who say sally if somebody's saying that sally ran into back of paul right and sally calls uh paul all this injury her affirmative defense could be the could be the statute of limitations you know it's been 30 it's it's been over three years north carolina says that north carolina says look if if you if you want to sue somebody that lawsuit has to occur within three years of the date of the accident and so if if paul waited three years and two days before he filed the lawsuit right if the accident happened july 1st 2017 and then paul said you know what i'm gonna file his father's lawsuit on july 5th 2020 that's three years and four days guess what i don't care how bad paul was hurt the statue of limitations in north carolina says that paul's case must be dismissed so those are the types of things if you have certain defenses that you include within uh the answer itself okay and so this right here this is what we call the pleading stage stages of litigation we're going we have just covered the pleading stage we've got the the service of process processes the complaint and summons right and we've got the pleadings the pleadings are the complaint and the answer okay okay any questions let's go to the record so i can change my board okay so we're back i've changed my board now we're going to talk about the stages of litigation we're going to the discovery stage the discovery stage look when you're watching these trials on tv there's no when you're watching trials and things like that on tv a lot of people think that it goes straight from filing a lawsuit to trial right and i see it all the time because that's the i mean that's the uh you know the entertainment part of it right we file a lawsuit uh it looks like next week we're in trial that's not how it works when your person files a lawsuit it may take the pleading stage that we just talked about may take 60 days if the defendant gets served and then he asks for another 30 days to answer the pleading stage may take 60 days the service of process to pleading stage well then what happens next next is about nine months of what we call discovery so you got two months for pleading stage you got nine months of discovery and then you got a week of trial that's kind of how it works what you don't see on tv is the discovery phase that much every now and then you do but you don't see it you really don't because they don't have time to show it in the tv show okay um so we're going to talk about the the discovery phase look the in american jurisprudence we believe that there should be no surprises at trial the the way we the the way we function is that both sides should know everything that the other side has every document they have every witness they have every contention they have we should know all of that before we actually get to the trial okay well how do we learn that is the other side just gonna say here here's all my weaknesses here here's all my defenses and here's every document you need no they're not gonna do that they they have no obligation just to just to you know sabotage their own case what they do have an obligation to do is participate in discovery in good faith the in discovery is this process to that that we use on both sides use to determine everything the other side may say when they get to trial everything every every document everything we know everything when we get to trial when i put a witness on the stand i'm not going to ask the witness a question that i don't already know the answer to how do i know the answer because i've been through this discovery phase i've got interrogatories and requests for production i've been i've used discovery tools to discover everything they know okay all right so let's talk about the different discovery tools okay interrogatories okay so what happens is there's something there's something called the rules of civil procedure let me see if i can put them up here i'm gonna put it right here rules of civil procedure okay so the things i'm about to tell you about discovery about the discovery tools the reason why i know these these things is i have studied as a lawyer i've studied the rules of civil procedure north carolina and federal government and federal courts as well have a set of rules called the rules of civil procedures they tell us what we can and can't do with regards to the procedure involved with litigation there's a rule of criminal procedure there's rules of evidence for but for these purposes the discovery tools are concerned are contained in the rules of civil procedure interrogatories the rules of civil procedures say that we can send each part each party can send the other party certain questions we call they call them interrogatories they can send written interrogatories to the other party and they can ask the other party to respond to those written interrogatories within 30 days other party has an obligation to respond to them there are very limited situations when when a party can object to an interrogatory they can object for something like attorney-client privilege information um but otherwise there aren't many objections that you have you're supposed to respond to everything the fact for and for instance a special you may find this interesting all right so i can ask them to produce or answer i can ask them to answer questions in response to interrogatories on information that may not be admissible at trial i i can get answers and interrogatories to things that if we were at trial i would not even be able to ask questions about or get into evidence because the rules for for discovery is not whether or not something is admissible at trial i get to get i get to get information that may that may not only be relevant but information that may lead to the discovery of relevant information so i may ask them i'ma ask them a question about uh have you ever heard anybody say that sally said that um that when she was that silent excuse i'm asking a question um has any of sally's friends heard sally say that sally uh was responsible she was drinking and driving that day something like that okay all right so if if if they have knowledge of that they have to tell me that but it may be that that is not admissible in trial it may not be admissible it may be non-invisible because of hearsay now there are certain he'll say exceptions i would probably get a statement like that in but my point is uh there are certain statements hearsay statements that i can get i can get information on in discovery that i can't get information on uh and i can't get it admitted in the trial right so discovery is the the rule for discovery is not only relevant information but any information that may lead to relevant information okay so i send them questions question basic question your name your date uh you know your name your date of birth your age things like that i can send them an interrogatory and say and say uh describe to me um explain to me um how the accident happened in your own words right and so they have to respond and write it this is what happened to accident i can send them a contention interrogatory do you contend the defendant was negligent anyway if so state each and every fact that supports your contention that the defendant was negligent in any way i can send them an interrogatory saying list all the witnesses that you believe have relevant information and describe and summarize the the extent of the knowledge that you believe each witness has right i can ask them all kinds of things i guess you know so interrogatories are respond to my questions that i'm asking you in writing within 30 days and respond under oath in other words when you respond you need to have a certification saying that that you stood in front of a notary and you swore that these interrogatories were true okay so that's interrogatory a discovery tool written questions okay um request for production a great tool request for production is a great discovery tool suppose we have an employment case and actually i had an employment case in the past and so during the course of the employment case my clients were fired where they were terminated and so uh i was just curious had was there any communication between the human resources office and the supervisor as to the reasons for my client's termination so i asked them see me you know i ask them a lot of questions about the most relevant to this discussion is i ask them to send me a cop send me copies of all email correspondence all memorandums all documents all notes all handwritten notes tight written notes any communication between the hr and any supervisory person discussing the reasons or the basis for my client's termination okay lo and behold so they send me all these emails like 300 300 pages or 300 pages of documents but in those pages of documents is like two pages of emails that basically say this human resources department sends the email to the manager says look if you fire this lady under these circumstances you'll be violating her rights under the family medical leave act that's what the human resource manager said in all these documents they that they sent to me in the email because i don't know the defendant is under is responsible to to you know the defendant attorney can't see that and say i'm not going to send it because i asked for it you know some unscrupulous attorneys might would have said that but this i got to give this law firm credit i ask for the information they've got to send you all the information if they don't send you all the information then that could be a what we call a sanction on rule 11 violation so case of right because of discovery i had i could put the human resources manager on the stand and she was going to testify on my behalf i know that why because she got an email that when she told them if they fired the lady that that this is what was going to happen so the point is i was able to get that by using a discovery tool called request for production okay of course you can ask anything request for productions any document you want you get asked for okay a request for admissions quest for admissions is look admit that this happened admit that admit that the human resources manager on the on on october 1st that the human resources manager sent an email to the to the local manager stating that she was violating the client's right i mean my client's right if they fired her and and and admit that and what what do they have to do within 30 days they got to do something they got to respond in writing and they got to say we admit or deny it right what what do they have to say they have to admit it well i've got a document that shows that that's what she said so they have to admit it and if once they admit it i don't have to prove that anymore once once there's an admission in the quest for admissions i can go to trial and the judge will say look jury these are facts that have been admitted it is admitted that the human resources manager sent a letter to the local manager saying that if they fired the client the the plaintiff they would be violating their family medical event i don't have to put anybody understand for that because what i'll i'll introduce the request for admissions and evidence okay request for admissions okay um interesting thing about requests from admissions if if somebody sends requests for admissions to a party and the party does not respond everything i ask them to admit is admitted so if i send requests or admissions to somebody and within 30 days they do not respond to the request for admissions then everything i ask them to admit is admitted for the rest of the trial so requests for admissions can be very can be very uh useful depositions i like depositions their positions are depositions are the closest thing to trial for a lawyer their positions and really if you guys have seen anything in discovery on tv what you saw was depositions because people like people like it's entertainment value you've seen you've seen uh and for your for your benefit i drew i drew a diagram to help you here okay basically what we do with the deposition is we get the party to come to a room we hire a court reporter to sit on one end of the table and then that court and then there's a bible they swear on the bible and then whatever questions i ask them in front of the court reporter they have to answer all right so i mean either party can do it like the plaintiff suppose plaintiff's attorney wants to question the defendant right so this is how this is set up here we have plaintiff's attorney we've got the court reporter we've got the defendant sitting here we've got the defendant's attorney sitting beside him because he might he might want to object to something but most of the time the the the attorney for the party can only sit there i mean you know you a lot of times on tv you see a bunch of argument things at depositions you don't really have that because the attorney has to sit there unless there's a privilege like attorney-client privilege or something like that but i'm asking this person this question under oath at a deposition they've got the answer i mean they've got an answer and it's interesting because people that are supervisors don't like being asked those kind of questions and being forced to answer because they're so used to being in charge so the most you know when do an employment case and the uh deposing supervisors is so much fun okay all right so here you go court reporter assistant one m the plaintiff's attorney that's pl for plaintiff's attorney says they're the defendants there plaintiff is also in the room police attorney questions the defendant asking whatever question he wants to ask him across the table and the court reporter takes it down word for word she's got either some of them have a little mask some of them have a little type thing most of them have a recording now that does it as well and so and so that's what the court reporter does corporate takes on everything word for word she turns into what we call a deposition transcript at the end of the day she turns into a deposition transcript so what that means is i if if on october 1st i spent six hours questioning this defendant about everything in the case right okay a court reporter turns into a deposition transcript and sends it to me and calls the copy to the defense attorney as well when i get ready to go to trial i already know what the defendant is gonna is gonna say why because i asked them the questions already and when i get ready to go to trial when i ask and when i say to him excuse me keep clearing my throat when i get ready to go to trial when i say to him look um it isn't true that it was a clear day yes all right how do i know that before i asked before i asked him because i asked him that question in deposition right isn't it true that you just left the bar and you had you you had um while you were at the bar you had um what do you call those old fashions you had three different uh uh you had three three old fashions before you left the bar yes how do i know that i took his deposition i asked him during his deposition i might have even conducted discovery am i taking the deposition of somebody at the bar right so before i even get there i've got all the questions that he that all the questions that i intend to ask him at trial i've already asked him during his deposition i know his answer so when i get to trial if i asked him wasn't it the clear day he says no it was raining i couldn't i had very little visibility i'll just look at him like that really didn't a a year ago when i took your deposition three months after the accident a year ago october 1st didn't i ask you the same question yes did you swear under oath before you started answering the questions that you would tell the truth yes do you remember the question i asked you no i do not will a copy of the deposition from that day assist your recollection yes your honor may i approach yes i hand you a copy of your deposition you can start at page at page 29 line 15. i'm gonna read my question will you please read your answer sure do you have a are you ready yes okay the question is is was it a clear day yes was it raining at all no was that the was that an answer you gave at the time yes is that was the answer true at the time yes so the answer you gave today is as you came today true no oh you know of course i would have a little more uh dramatic to it it's the answer you gave today true we can't believe anything you're saying can we no i'm just kidding all right i'll digress okay so anyhow so that's that's the discovery process okay stage of litigation uh we've talked about pleasing stage talk but discovery stage next we'll be talking about the trial states okay let's go off the record so i can change my board