Litigation Fundamentals: Issuing Subpoenas to Obtain Records & Evidence when Litigating in Court
Subpoena power when you’re in litigation.
Subpoenas are a way for people in companies to get records about other people’s claims.
For example, if someone claims to have been hurt by your product, you are going to want to subpoena the medical records directly from the hospital, the doctor, even the ambulance call and ambulance records.
All of that stuff you want to get directly, because I can tell you as a former ambulance chasing trial lawyer, people change records all the time and they will pull out certain pages of records. I can’t tell you how many cases that I saw where doctors just pulled out pages or altered their medical records. You want to make sure you’re getting them directly from the healthcare providers.
You can use subpoenas for employment records, tax records & many other records that might be pertinent to your case.
In state court, it’s a bit different. In state court, you generally need what’s called HIPAA compliant authorizations. It’s something that is signed by the alleged victim that gives you permission and you’re entitled to it.
In federal court, you could simply issue subpoenas. So Amazon sellers, if you get sued and you need to get the records for your own defense to give to your expert witnesses, or just to confirm that the person was really hurt the way they claim to have been hurt, this is how your lawyer gets the records.
Also, on every litigation video, where I’m talking about an Amazon seller getting sued, I’m going to repeat it every single time….
Every single Amazon seller, you’re required to have insurance and you should have insurance. The only broker we recommend is Ashlin Hadden in Indiana. She’s awesome. With full transparency, she is my broker. She’s also become my friend. She’s remarkable. Look, get insurance for indemnification and also for defense costs.
