Required production of audit trails is judicial overreach

For the Defense

By Donald P. Eckler

Donald “Pat” Eckler is a partner at Pretzel & Stouffer focusing on professional liability defense, insurance coverage litigation, and general tort defense. He is the legislative chair of the Illinois Association of Defense Trial Counsel. His views are his own and not those of his firm or its clients.

Posted September 2, 2020 10:08 AM

That sound you hear is the glee with which plaintiffs’ attorneys in Cook County have received the current Law Division case management order that requires production of “audit trails, if any” in every case. Without explanation, consultation, or consideration of the potentially massive burden that this requirement will impose on health care providers in the middle of a pandemic, the current case management order improperly requires the production of what plaintiffs’ counsel seem to believe is the key to showing that every …

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