Financial Record Requests/Subpoenas:
In my experience, the financial record request is one of the most powerful tools for finding assets on behalf of defrauded investors. Section 30.007 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code provides that these requests are governed by Section 59.006 of the Texas Finance Code. In Texas Finance Code Section 59.006, you can find many rules regarding how the process works, but the key feature of this statute, in my opinion, is the burden placement. The statute places the burden on the party resisting discovery to obtain relief from the Court. That typically means filing a motion, drafting an affidavit, setting it for hearing, filing notice of hearing, dealing with scheduling conflicts, waiting through a long docket call, arguing the motion, possibly offering testimony, and finally obtaining a ruling. That is a lot of work. Consequently, the party resisting the discovery rarely puts up as much of a fight as they will when they are simply resisting discovery responses.
Resisting traditional discovery, like a Request for Production under Tex. R. Civ. P. 196, is much easier. For the most part, your attorney will simply pick one of the innumerable form objections that exist, write it down, state what is being produced and what is not being produced, and send it to opposing counsel. Then, the burden is on opposing counsel to file a Motion to Compel Discovery Responses, set it for hearing, deal with scheduling conflicts, wait through a long docket call, argue the motion, and obtain an order. Then, once the order has been obtained, there is the inevitable subsequent battle over the scope of the order. Again, the burden is on the one wanting the discovery to prosecute this. The bank, however, does not have a dog in the fight, so to speak, so the bank will typically produce more or less exactly what the bank has been asked to produce without raising countless objections and necessitating potentially expensive and time-consuming pre-trial hearings over the matter.
I am planning on adding more sections to this post in the future. Reading an article on these tools can be helpful, but using them to achieve your goals takes some finesse.
Copyright 2017, Ian Ghrist, All Rights Reserved.
Disclaimer: This blog is for informational purposes only. Do not rely on any part of this blog as legal advice. Instead, seek out the advice of a licensed attorney.