Legal Question in Civil Litigation in Florida
I went to pre trail and forgot to ask the judge that I want to sobpoena the defendants records. It's for small claims. I need to know what must or can do to get those records before the court day
2 Answers from Attorneys
You had a pretrial hearing in small claims court??? That is unusual. You must submit discovery requests to the other party (subpoena duces tecum would work). File motion to compell if the other party does not comply.
On the day of your hearing, the judge will need all of your evidence -- no excuses.
There are pretrial conferences in small claims unless all parties are represented by an attorney. You would typically ask for the documents before pretrial because you may need to admit some as evidence, but you can make a request for documents. This is called the discovery phase before trial. Small Claims Rule 7.020(b) covers discovery. Were you sent a request for documents or interrogatories from the other party? You should check the Florida Small Claims Rules at http://www.floridabar.org/TFB/TFBResources.nsf/attachments/5e3d51af15ee8dcd85256b29004bfa62/$FILE/ATT9QYRJ/Small Claims.pdf?openelement
Regards,