Opinion ID: 1917351
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The petitioners' request to inspect plumbing and electrical connections to the expansion system and to examine alleged physical damage.

Text: The plaintiffs contend that the petitioners could and should have sought to inspect the intervenor plaintiffs' plumbing and electrical connections to the expansion system and to examine the alleged physical damage to the intervenor plaintiffs' residences much earlier than January 2002. For example, the plaintiffs state that the petitioners were aware of the complaints concerning problems with the sanitary sewer system from the time the last home was connected to the system in August of 1994, and that [t]he Petitioners had almost unlimited and unfettered access to the individual plaintiffs' residences to inspect the sewer line and connection to the individual residences from 1994 through approximately June of 1998.... [11] (Plaintiffs' brief at 58). Apparently, the plaintiffs' argument is that the petitioners should have anticipated the specific damage the intervenor plaintiffs would assert and should have inspected the residences before taking the depositions of those plaintiffs. However, this argument ignores both the nature of the adversarial process and the realities of the discovery process. In our judicial system, the burden of proof is always on the party bringing the allegations. In a civil case, because the plaintiff brings the allegations and therefore carries the burden of proof, the defendant need not guess or speculate as to what evidence of damage the defendant should seek to counter. Instead, the defendant's course of discovery follows the plaintiff's evidence of damage, which is identified through the discovery process. Obviously, to say that the petitioners were aware of general problems is not to say that they were aware of the specific damage the petitioners would be charged with having caused. Given the fact that pleadings are generally stated in very broad terms, see Ala. R. Civ. P. 8(a) (requiring only a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief), the very purpose of discovery (especially the taking of depositions) is to give the parties an opportunity to clearly define the damage being asserted, which provides the party being charged with wrongdoing fair notice of the specific wrongs he must then be prepared to counter at or before trial: `Generally speaking, the purpose of modern discovery is to assist the administration of justice, to aid a party in preparing and presenting his case or his defense, to advance the function of a trial in ascertaining truth, and to accelerate the disposition of suits. Beyond this, the rules for discovery are designed to eliminate, as far as possible, concealment and surprise in the trial of lawsuits to the end that judgments be rested upon the real merits of cases and not upon the skill and maneuvering of counsel' 23 Am.Jur.2d, Depositions and Discovery, § 155 (1965). Stated otherwise, the rules seek to `make a trial less a game of blind man's buff and more a fair contest with the basic issues and facts disclosed to the fullest practicable extent.' United States v. Procter and Gamble Co., 356 U.S. 677, 78 S.Ct. 983, 2 L.Ed.2d 1077 (1958); Hickman v. Taylor, 329 U.S. 495, 67 S.Ct. 385, 91 L.Ed. 451 (1947). Ex parte Dorsey Trailers, Inc., 397 So.2d 98, 103 (Ala.1981) (also stating that [a] defendant is entitled to the factual basis of the plaintiff's claim and all facts going to prove or disprove defendant's defense, 397 So.2d at 104); see also Cone Builders, Inc. v. Kulesus, 585 So.2d 1284, 1289 (Ala. 1991) (stating that [u]ndeniably, the purpose of the discovery process is to avoid unfair surprise at the trial). It is true that, as the plaintiffs note, the petitioners had performed some inspections of some of the intervenor plaintiffs' residences before 1998. However, there are several reasons that this fact does not bolster the plaintiffs' arguments. First, those inspections, made at Millry's request, were made before any of the residents whose homes were inspected became plaintiffs. Therefore, the petitioners had no chance, before the inspections, to identify all of the damage that would need to be looked for and verified. Also, because those inspections were completed at least two years before any of the Millry residents intervened, further inspections would still be needed to determine what damage the residents were claiming at the time they became plaintiffs. Second, the inspections were generally limited, focusing mainly on the parts, such as the holding tanks and the service lines from the tanks to the main sewer lines, associated with the work actually performed by the petitioners. The inspections did not focus on the connections from the tanks to the homes, any defects in the plumbing or electrical system in the homes, or any alleged damage to the homes, although problems with those items were noted where observed. Finally, the limited inspections were performed on less than 30 Millry residences whose owners had made complaints. The vast majority of residences owned by those who later became intervenor plaintiffs were not inspected. It is undisputed that the evidence sought by the petitioners through the inspections is extremely relevant, because those inspections concern precisely what the plaintiffs have alleged and must prove: causation (which requires an examination of the electrical and plumbing connections of each residence for possible causes) and damage (which requires an examination of the alleged damage to each residence). Understood properly, this evidence is similar to the evidence sought by a defendant who is seeking evidence relating to both possible alternative causes and alleged damage in a personal-injury case, in which the defendant is entitled to extremely broad discovery. See Dumas, supra, 778 So.2d at 801 (This Court has held that when a party files a lawsuit that makes an issue of his physical condition, he waives his privacy rights in favor of the public's interest in full disclosure.) (citing Mull v. String, 448 So.2d 952, 954 (Ala.1984)); Ex parte Thomas, 628 So.2d 483 (Ala.1993). The plaintiffs do not contend that the information is not relevant; rather, they appear to rely solely on the trial court's ability to refuse discovery requests of a party who has not been diligent in conducting discovery. While that power surely rests in the trial court, any exercise of that power to bar the petitioners from performing the inspections now sought was clearly an abuse of discretion in this case. The fact that the petitioners did not, until January 2002, seek permission to enter onto the intervenor plaintiffs' property to perform the inspections they now seek is not at all surprising or unreasonable, given the course of discovery in this case. After three and one-half years of litigation with only one named plaintiffthe Town of Millrythe trial court in early- to mid-2000 radically changed the nature of this case by allowing over 100 individual plaintiffs to intervene, each claiming individualized damages. The petitioners immediately sought written discovery responses (which typically provide the foundation for depositions) regarding these new plaintiffs, but, as described above, those responses were seriously delayed by the plaintiffs' failure or refusal to respond appropriately, even after they were ordered to do so by the trial court. When the responses (still somewhat incomplete) were finally all received in April 2001, the deposition process began, and it was not completed until December 2001. Even then, the plaintiffs failed to produce five of the intervenor plaintiffs noticed for deposition, and, as the trial court itself noted, the plaintiffs have not yet given a valid reason for that failure. When viewed as a whole, nothing in the discovery process indicates that the petitioners were not diligent in pursuing discovery. On the contrary, it appears that lack of diligence was mainly a characteristic of the plaintiffs, who were, for the most part, nonresponsive. Because, as stated above, the petitioners were entitled to follow the plaintiffs' lead in determining what theories of causation to disprove and what alleged damage to examine, the petitioners' actions in seeking to depose the numerous intervenor plaintiffs before examining their residences were more than reasonable and do not demonstrate a lack of diligence. Because there was no contemptuous behavior or lack of diligence on the part of the petitioners, the trial court clearly abused its discretion in denying them the ability to inspect the intervenor plaintiffs' residences in order to discover this clearly and directly relevant information. Therefore, we issue the writ as to this discovery aspect.