Legal Question in Civil Litigation in Missouri

Re: Discovery Questions

Have a lawyer and let him handle this.

If you are a defendant and the other side is taking your deposition, or asking you questions you don't want to answer, you can do several things but each may have consequences.

If in a deposition, you can say "I object and refuse to answer. I object because the information sought is not reasonably related to the issues in the lawsuit and is not likely to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence." If you do this, they are likely to get an order compelling you to answer, and if you do not, then you'll be in contempt of court, or subject to sanctions. This is why a lawyer should handle this issue.

You can also always assert your 5th Amendment right not to answer any question and do so without explanation, but you can't pick and choose what questions to assert that privilege to, and as a result, you simply have to sit there and repeat the same thing on every question, even ones you might want to answer. Worse, if you are the defendant, the plaintiff can say that if you had answered the questions truthfully, it would have hurt your case, and there is a presumption to that effect in Missouri law. So the lawyer on the other side starts asking questions like "You're an IV drug user, aren't you?" You recite the 5th, and the court and jury can assume that if you answered it truthfully, you'd incriminate yourself, and then find that you ARE in fact an IV drug user. See the problem? This is why it is so important to have an attorney. You can't get out of doing a deposition, and some of what you are going to be asked you are going to want to answer. For this reason I don't think you ought to be asserting your own objections because it is very very easy to shoot yourself in the head doing it this way.

Get an attorney to help you with this.