Civil actions: discovery.

Existing law governs discovery in civil actions, and allows a party to obtain discovery from another party through written interrogatories and requests for admission, among others. Under existing law, each response by the responding party to these discovery requests is required to include the same number or letter, and be in the same sequence, as the corresponding discovery request, as specified, but is not required to repeat the text of the particular discovery request. In order to facilitate the discovery process, this bill would, upon request in one of the aforementioned discovery methods, require a party to provide the requesting party with the document propounding or responding to the discovery request in electronic format within 3 court days of the request, except as specified. If a responding party requests and receives a discovery request in electronic format, the bill would require the responding party to include the text of the interrogatory immediately preceding any response. The bill would also provide that a party may provide the requested electronic format in any format, and may transmit the document by any method, as agreed upon by the parties, except as specified.