Question

Discussion Questions:

David is a restaurant owner and is suing one of his suppliers for breach of contract. The contract required the supplier to deliver Alaskan Crab three times a week, but in the fourth week of the contract the supplier discontinued the delivery. The complaint and the answer have been filed and they are in the middle of discovery. Dave’s attorney has three remaining areas he would like to investigate. These are (1) to review a copy of the suppliers shipping records because he believes the supplier was selling the Alaskan Crab to a competitor; (2) preserve the testimony of the Alaskan fisherman who catches the crab for the supplier because the fisherman will not be available for trial; and (3) get the supplier to admit before trial that he stopped shipping the crab to David.

Explain what discovery methods you would use to obtain this information and how they work.

Answer 1

David has legal recourse against the supplier as it is clear that he has breached the contract.
However, Dav's attorney can check the shipping records but if he is supplying that to a competitor is well within his right unless specified in the contract. The supplier can be held guilty only for breaching the contract.

Fisherman also can confirm whether he has sold crabs to the supplier. Now the better way is to check accounts and cash flow statements which could prove that whether he has paid that fisherman for crabs and whether he has ultimately sold that but not to David.

There could be a possibility that the supplier could have paid fisherman in cash to avoid accounting entry. Even in that case, inward shipment records and outward shipment records could be checked. Alaskan crabs must be stored in cold storage so investigating authorities could check cold storage facility and its electricity consumption record which could prove instrumental in whether there was actually inventory.

These circumstantial pieces of evidence will be enough to prove the facts.