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Can A Party Use The Work Product Of Protect Trial Exhibits At A Pretrial Conference?

Decent Essays

ISSUE
I. Can a party use the work product doctrine to protect trial exhibits at a pretrial conference?
BRIEF ANSWER
I. Likely no. While a court may be able to protect trial exhibits, it likely cannot do so under the work product doctrine.
DICUSSION
While, pretrial conference rules likely do not mandate that courts must allow opposing parties to see each others’ trial exhibits, the use of the work product doctrine in this case was likely incorrectly applied. The Kansas statutes provide for pretrial conferences, but do not provide much in the way of detail for what should occur in these conferences. Kan. Stat. Ann. § 60-216 (2014). The Supreme Court Rules go into further detail, providing that at the pretrial conference “parties inform the court and opposing parties of all exhibits parties intend to use at the trial” along with several other procedural steps. KS R DIST CT Rule 140. However, the rule does provide that the conferences “must be conducted substantially in conformity” with the listed procedural steps and so not every step must be completed to satisfy the rule. Id. District courts have broad discretionary powers under K.S.A. 60-216 and so district courts have the ability to guide the pretrial conference process as they see fit. Boyle v. Harries, 22 Kan. App. 2d 686, 690 (1996). It is largely unclear what standard the Court of Appeals would use for an appeal on this issue. A question of whether a document falls under work product is subject to unlimited

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