July 21, 2006
The practice in the arbitration forum - with very few exceptions - has been to have each party pay the costs of copying and sending discovery documents to the other parties in an action. This practice should be continued and not replaced with the proposed rule which would shift the cost of production to the party receiving the documents. The proposed "cost shifting" invites disputes as to the "reasonableness" of copy charges and encourages "junk" document production which, in some cases, would be part of an attempt to outspend an opponent into submission. The cost shifting part of the proposed rule should be removed.
Tom Wagner