LLB PT Civil Procedure Semester B 2008/2009

Tutorial 8

TUTORIAL 8
Topics covered in Lecture: 1. 2. Discovery Interrogatories

Question A Questions 1. Assuming the following documents are all relevant, discuss whether a party holding them may be able to refuse to produce them for inspection: (1) In an action in which the owner of a power station sues the manufacturer of some equipment installed in the power station in respect of defects in such equipment which led to a fire, a root cause analysis report in respect of the fire prepared by the manager of the power station (although the manager has a routine policy of preparing such reports after the occurrence of any incident, which are then used internally to improve controls/policies etc); (a) Would the answer to (1) above be different if the managers policy of preparing such reports was required by the insurer of the power station, such reports being used by the insurer to obtain legal advice in order for it to determine whether to take action against any wrongdoer?

(2)

A letter, labelled without prejudice, from Defendant to Plaintiff in which Defendant denies all of Plaintiffs claims and threatens to make a counterclaim against Plaintiff; Correspondence between a person and his solicitor seeking legal advice on how to circumvent certain tax laws.

(3)

LLB PT Civil Procedure Semester B 2008/2009 Question B Facts

Tutorial 8

In an action in which the owner of a power station sues the manufacturer of some equipment installed in the power station in respect of defects in such equipment which led to a fire, the parties have just filed and served their lists of documents on each other. Given that the owner knows that the equipment has been made and installed by the manufacturer in hundreds of power stations worldwide over a period of some 20 years, the owner is of the view (but is not certain) that the manufacturer should have (I) test results of the equipment in question, (II) records of previous failures of such equipment installed at other power stations, and (III) details of all the other power stations at which the equipment in question has been installed, including the dates of installation. The owner wants to obtain these documents as he wants to show that manufacturer already knew the equipment is faulty when it was installed at owners power station. However, the owner notices that manufacturers list of documents does not list these documents.

Questions 1. What procedure can owner use to try to obtain the documents in question? Discuss whether such a procedure is like to succeed. Discuss the appropriateness of an interrogatory, served at this stage of the proceedings, asking whether the equipment in question had passed all the relevant quality tests before being installed at the power station.

2.