Fighting debt collectors with document production requests when sued for debt

In a way, it’s obvious what “production requests” are, isn’t it? They are requests to the other party to a lawsuit to produce certain documents or specific things, and the rules define what could be produced very broadly. These items must be in the “possession or control” of the requesting party. If they are, the requested party must identify the documents or things and make it clear how they will be physically produced. You should check local rules, because sometimes the rules specify that documents must be provided for the response (to the production request) to be complete.

Document requests reveal what the debt collector can prove

Production requests are the way to find out what written evidence the collector has. And it’s usually not much. You cannot know how strong or weak your case is until you know this information.

When making your production requests, there are three things to keep in mind: You must make your requests specific; must follow local rules regarding its form; and you must make the requests broad enough to gather all the materials you are looking for. These things can be a challenge.

Make your specific requests

If you know the exact documents you are looking for, you can specify them by date or name. And so it will be whenever you ask for the documents that the collector has sent you (if you have kept them). The advantage of asking for documents that you have already received, of course, is that if they are provided at discovery, they will be undeniably from the collector.

But often you won’t know the date or title of the documents you’re looking for. If, for example, you’re asking for all the documents the debt collector has that could be used to prove you owe money, you’ll have no idea what those documents would be. So you should ask for category and more general description. If you have a claim under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), you’ll probably want to ask for “whatever policies and procedures they have in place to prevent” the type of violation you’re suing them for because they can defend their counterclaim by arguing that they had made an “innocent” mistake that they had policies to prevent. Likewise, you’ll probably want copies of any complaints similar to yours that someone else has made (as proof that the “policies” are bogus).

Follow the required form

In some jurisdictions, you may submit multi-party production requests: “provide all written documents that complain in any way about your debt collection practices and provide (a) your responses, if any, to the complaint, (b ) any document created by any government agency that has regulatory authority over you, (c) any document you have provided…” However, in some jurisdictions, this type of question is not allowed. Find your local rules and find out if you can make “compound” or “conjunctive” requests. If you can, fine. Otherwise, you’ll have to break the requests into more manageable chunks. Please note that if the rules place limits on requests, multi-party requests may be considered more than one request.

Make your requests broad enough

The other side of “make your requests specific enough to be clear” is that you want to make sure your requests are broad enough to get everything that might be important to the case. If they are too broad, they are looking for information that is not relevant to your case, but if they are too narrow, they will allow the debt collector to avoid providing important documents. Therefore, you need to think carefully about the requests you make.

conclusion

Requesting the correct documents can help your case by showing you how to prove your defense or refute the plaintiff’s case. Take the time you need to get them right.