One of the early steps you'll take in your personal injury litigation is to complete discovery. Discovery is the process of requesting information, documents, or objects from the other side.
One of the main elements of discovery is requests for admission. What are requests for admission (RFA)? How can they help you, and what rights do you and the defendant have regarding admissions? Here's what you need to know.
What Are Admissions?
Requests for admissions are, as their name implies, a request for the other party to admit or deny certain facts of the case. For instance, you might send the insurance company a request to admit that the accident was a covered incident. The insurer may respond by either admitting this as a fact or denying it as a fact.
How Do Admissions Help You?
As with all aspects of discovery, RFAs are designed to help you in two ways.
The first is to build your best case. In the above example, if the insurer admits that the accident is covered, you don't have to waste time proving that it was. You can put your resources elsewhere. On the other hand, if you know they deny this, it's something you'll need to prove during court.
The second goal is to help you understand what the insurer is arguing and where their case's strengths and weaknesses lie. If the insurer sends a request for admission that you were not covered by their policy at the time of the accident, you can then gather records showing that you were. This might weaken their position during negotiations and in court.
Can Either Side Object to Admissions?
As with most elements of discovery, you or your attorneys can object to RFAs. For example, perhaps the insurer requests that you admit or deny that you had insurance at the time of the accident. This request is very vague and could mean any insurance policy. You may object to it on such grounds.
Other reasons to object to requests for admission include things like invading your privacy, being irrelevant to the case, or being a compound request.
Just because you can object to RFAs or deny these facts, though, doesn't mean you should do so indiscriminately. Not only will this slow down your case, but it could demonstrate a lack of good faith on your part.
Where Can You Get Help?
Requests for admission and other discovery elements are vital to building a good case against an insurer or other responsible party. So getting professional legal assistance is important. Meet with an insurance litigation attorney in your jurisdiction today to get started.
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