small-claims-court
Indiana, USA. How do I legally refuse defendant&#39;s request for a later trial date and &quot;limited discovery&quot; in small claims court?
<p>I filed a small claims case against a small company who broke an item that was shipped to me. In response I recently received a packet of papers from the defendant's attorney basically requesting that I send the defendant's attorney all the things I am going to bring to court as evodence, as well as my and everyone else involved's SSN and driver license numbers (as if I know the relevant store employee's DL # and SSN, and as if I would give them my own). How do legally opt out of or refuse this limited discovery request in favor of presenting all my documents and photos at trial in front of a judge instead? How do I refuse a later trial date as well? I don't have an attorney.</p>

<p>The general page of information on small claims court in Indiana is <a href="http://www.in.gov/judiciary/2710.htm" rel="nofollow noreferrer">here</a>, and the non-legalistic user's guide is <a href="http://www.in.gov/judiciary/files/small-claims-manual.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">here</a>. In particular, they say this about "discovery".</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>If the Defendant has information which you cannot get and which you
  need to pursue your claim, you may request that the court order the
  Defendant to disclose this information to you. The Defendant may also
  make such a request to the court in order to prepare a defense. Such a
  request will be granted only if you give good reasons for disclosing
  the information and only after the other party has been notified of
  your claim and that the information is being sought. The court may
  limit the information sought to that which is necessary for the
  particular case.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>If you get an actual order from the court, you cannot legally opt out; but their attorney cannot compel you to to provide any information. If the court deems it important, they might compel you to reveal facts that you know – but not facts that you don't know. This request from the attorney is presumably them giving you notice of the information requested, as required: the court will decide how much of that request is reasonable (especially, relevant – a SS number is almost certainly not relevant to their case).</p>

<p>Likewise, if the court sets a later trial date (perhaps because the defendant successfully requested a continuance), you can request a continuance relative to that, but you can't force them to go with the date you originally scheduled. The basic rule is that each side can request 1 continuance, and there has to be a good reason for the continuance.</p>
