Discovery in an industrial pollution case

Many lawyers and a great many law professors who lack significant trial experience believed that discovery should commence with written interrogatories.

Their reason is that depositions should be reserved for pinpointing particular weaknesses after they have been discovered through interrogatories. This reasoning is supported by the naive belief that depositions are somehow less rigorous and less critical to the plaintiff’s case than motion practice or appeals.

In many cases, this can become. the fatal flaw in a plaintiff’s case.

Always begin discovery in an environmental action against an industrial polluter with the deposition of the defendant’s employee charged with the operation and management of the offending facility.

In the Hoerner-Waldorf case, the deposition of Roy Countryman, manager of the Hoerner-Waldorf paper mill, furnished the basis for the presentation of the plaintiff’s case and the survival of the cause of action until the defendants had been forced to invest $15 million and to modernize their plant.

The detailed analysis of that deposition and others which followed: The Hoerner-Waldorf CFO, The Plant Pathologist, The Missoula County Health Officer; together with the Responses to Hoerner-Waldorf Interrogatories can still serve as a guide in any lawsuit seeking to impose state-of-the-art pollution control technology on an industrial defendant.