§ 74.352.Discovery Procedures

A mandatory discovery exchange on a fixed schedule, using standard forms.

The plaintiff shall, within 45 days after filing the original petition, serve full and complete answers to the appropriate standard set of interrogatories and responses to the standard requests for production promulgated by the Health Care Liability Discovery Panel.

Each defendant provider shall do the same within 45 days after the date an answer to the petition was due.

Both sides produce their core information early and without a request having to be drafted, which is the purpose of a standard set.

Objections are nearly foreclosed. Except on motion and for good cause shown, no objection may be asserted regarding any standard interrogatory or request — though no response is required where a particular item is clearly inapplicable.

Failure, or a groundless objection, is grounds for sanctions on motion of any party.

Extensions are bounded: the court may extend for good cause and shall extend if agreed in writing by all opposing parties, but in no event for more than an additional 30 days.

A party added later has 45 days from the pleading by which it first appeared. Answers must be supplemented under the ordinary rules if information was not in hand when they were filed.

Subsection (h) preserves ordinary discovery: nothing precludes additional non-duplicative discovery, and the standard sets do not count as one of the two sets of interrogatories the rules otherwise permit.