Utah made substantial (and controversial) changes to its discovery rules for cases filed after November 1, 2011. A lengthy research study by the National Center for State Courts has been completed, and has now been released.
The NCSC’s summary from its web site:
In November 2011, the Utah Supreme Court revised the rules governing discovery in civil cases. The revisions expressly provide that the amount of discovery undertaken should be proportional to the amount at stake in the litigation, and established three separate discovery tiers that specify the amount of permissible discovery based on the amount-in-controversy stated in the complaint. The NCSC evaluated the impact of the revision and found that the revisions significantly reduced the time to disposition, and in most types of cases, significantly reduced the frequency of discovery disputes. The revisions also resulted in increased rates of legal representation by plaintiffs in civil cases other than debt-collection and domestic cases, and increased settlements.
Hannaford-Agor et al. Civil Justice Initiative – Utah: Impact of the Revisions to Rule 26 on Discovery Practice in Utah District Courts (2014).
The rules themselves can be found here.
The Utah Supreme Court’s Committee on Rules of Civil Procedure took a lot of abuse over these changes. (I was a member of that group until a year ago.) I’m told that the Committee is quite pleased with the NCSC’s findings.
