Opinion ID: 3063798
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Discovery in 2007

Text: On May 2, 2007, the district court issued its discovery order, which stated that fact discovery was to be completed by October 20, 2007, and dispositive motions filed by November 30, 2007, unless the court granted an extension. The discovery order directed each party to serve disclosures relating to expert witnesses by August 20, 2007, for the case-in-chief and by September 10, 2007, for rebuttal. On May 14, 2007, Plaintiff Wingster served her initial disclosures. Attachment A to Wingster’s disclosures, entitled “Witness List to Initial Disclosures,” listed as possible witnesses: “Medical Personnel at the Autry State Prison and medical personnel at Mitchell County Hospital and Phoebe Putman [sic] Hospital . . . who treated Jonathon S, [sic] Haynes.” It is undisputed that Dr. Jack Copeland was Haynes’s treating physician at Phoebe Putney Hospital and signed the death certificate. Wingster’s disclosures indicated that she had not engaged any experts. On July 20, 2007, Plaintiff Wingster filed her response to Defendant Head’s first interrogatories. Wingster’s response listed Dr. Copeland’s name on at least three different occasions as a “person with information and/or knowledge of those facts” asserted in her complaint, including the assertion that the “excessive use of force . . . proximately caused his (Haynes’s) death.” Fact discovery closed on October 20, 2007. 3