§ 2035.050.Order authorizing discovery; considerations;

This is the section that gets a pre-filing discovery petition across the finish line. If the court determines that authorizing all or part of the requested discovery would prevent a failure or delay of justice, it must issue an order allowing it. Where the petitioner is acting on behalf of an expected successor in interest, rather than expecting to be a party outright, the court also weighs a factor unique to that situation: whether the successor in interest could conduct the same discovery once it steps into the petitioner's shoes, which might counsel against authorizing pre-filing discovery for someone who is not yet, and may never be, the actual party.

The order itself cannot be open-ended. It has to name the specific witnesses whose depositions are authorized, describe the documents, things, or places that may be inspected, and identify anyone whose physical or mental condition may be examined, tracking the petition's own specificity requirements. And once that order issues, the discovery does not happen in some special pre-filing procedural vacuum. Depositions, inspections, and examinations authorized under this chapter follow the same rules that govern those methods in a case that has already been filed, so the petitioner and the expected adverse parties operate under familiar, well-tested procedures rather than a separate set of pre-filing rules.