If the other party fails to respond to a request for information, for example, then a motion to compel discovery of that information could force that party to provide a response. A number of different motions can be used to ensure that both sides are able to handle the discovery process to the best of their abilities. Both parties can request information from one another to help establish the facts of the case. The discovery process, like its name suggests, is when the prosecution and defense make efforts to discover all the facts of the case.

Discovery motionsĭuring the discovery process both parties to a lawsuit or case will collect information and evidence that they can then use to build their case. Additionally, a motion to dismiss may be filed if the defendant waives his or her right to a speedy trial, has been granted immunity or a pardon, or if that defendant had been previously tried for the same offense, which is known as double jeopardy. In some cases, there may even be a legal issue at stake but the statute of limitations has expired, meaning the court can no longer deliver a verdict. This motion helps ensure that disputes that involve no legal issue do not end up wasting the court’s time and resources. The moving party in such a case may concede that the facts of the case are true, but that the case should nonetheless be dismissed because there is no legal issue presented in those facts that the court can rule on.

In other words, when a motion to dismiss happens, the moving party is not contesting the facts as presented by the other party, but merely saying that the claim at issue is not a legal one on which the court has any say.Ī motion to dismiss is one of the most important motions to understand in U.S. Motion to dismissĪ motion to dismiss, which is more popularly known as “throwing out” a case, is requested when one side (usually the defendant) contends that the plaintiff’s claim is not one on which the court can rule. While there are lots of different types of legal motions, the ones below tend to stand out for being both very common and very important to individual cases.

Motion to dismiss template