Administrative Law headache

As many of you know, I practice in the ever-not-so-popular legal realm called Administrative Law. Recently, I read a Utah Court of Appeals case of Casper v. Labor Commission that has made me concerned. In this case, a man working for a trucking company allegedly dies of a heart attack due to his employment with the company. The widow files on behalf of her husband for workers compensation benefits before the Utah Labor Commission.

After the hearing is requested, the parties (presumably the widow and the insurance company) engage in discovery. As part of the discovery, the attorney for the widow submits a document called Request for Admission, in which the attorney poses questions for admissions. Evidently, the attorney learns a great deal from the admission and seeks to have the admission admitted into evidence at the hearing before the Labor Commission's Administrative Law Judge. The Judge refuses to admit the admissions and the widow eventually loses at the hearing.

On appeal, the attorney argues that the Judge should have admitted the admissions and if the Judge would have then the case would have been favorable to the widow. The Commission affirms the decision of the Judge and they appeal to the Utah Court of Appeals.

At the Court of Appeals, the three judge panel agrees with the Commission stating that in usually Requests for Admission would be admitted into evidence during normal judicial proceedings. The court goes further and says that since administrative hearings are not "normal" judicial proceedings then the rules of evidence and civil procedure are laxed and the Judge is not bound to accept the admissions.

My question is now this: Why engage in the discovery process at all? Next time I get a set of Interrogatories or I am scheduled for a deposition, I am going to tell the other attorney, NO!! Since the ALJ will not accept my information obtained through discovery, I refuse to waste my time on something he is not going to use anyway. As far as I am concerned, I will submit my medical evidence and tell the other attorney I will see him at the hearing.

Inaugural Post

I thought that I would enter the 21st century and start a blog. Not that my life is interesting, I just thought that I would be a good lemming and follow the crowd. I am constantly surrounded by "tech geeks" that tell me that I need to get on board and blog. I decided to dedicate the blog to ramblings of law, religion, and good ol college basketball. Pardon the self-centeredness, but I just may have a few interesting things to say. Enjoy. Did I mention that we are selling our house?