Rule 16.Pre-trial procedure: Formulating issues

Section A gives Indiana judges discretion to call a pretrial conference on their own, but takes the discretion away once a party asks: if any party moves for one, the court must hold it, in any civil case (criminal cases are excluded). At the conference, the court and the attorneys can take up nine kinds of business — narrowing the issues in dispute, deciding whether the pleadings need amending, working out what facts and documents the parties will just admit rather than prove at trial, capping the number of expert witnesses, exchanging witness names and a preview of their expected testimony, entering a discovery order, weighing whether some form of alternative dispute resolution makes sense, setting deadlines for dispositive motions with the trial date in mind, and — a catch-all — anything else that would help move the case toward resolution.

The conference itself doesn’t happen until discovery has had a reasonable chance to run its course, unless the court orders otherwise. The clerk gives at least thirty days’ notice of it, and each side has to show up with at least one attorney who plans to take part in the trial. Before any of that, though, the attorneys have their own job to do: Section C requires them to meet and confer at least ten days ahead of the pretrial conference, and it’s their joint duty — plaintiff’s counsel and defense counsel alike — to arrange that meeting. At it, they mark and exchange trial exhibits, tagging each one “P/T” for its pretrial designation, a tag struck once the exhibit is introduced at trial, work out written stipulations covering those exhibits’ authenticity and admissibility, stipulate in writing to whatever facts and issues aren’t in genuine dispute, exchange witness lists with names and addresses, talk through any issues under the rules governing access to court records, discuss discovery, and fully explore the possibility of settlement. Section D expects each attorney to walk in having mastered every part of the case well enough to strike these stipulations.

Not every proposed stipulation gets accepted. If opposing counsel won’t agree to stipulate to something, the party who wanted the stipulation compiles a list of the disputed facts or exhibits and gives it to the other side at least two days before the pretrial conference, then hands the court that same list at the conference. And discovery of new material doesn’t stop just because the attorneys already met: if either side turns up new witnesses or exhibits after that meeting — whether before the pretrial conference or during trial itself — the rule requires immediate disclosure to the other side, with the disclosure filed with the court, and, for anything found during trial, dated to show when it was shared. The court can also hold more than one pretrial conference if the case calls for it.

Once the conference is over, Section J requires a pretrial order recording what happened — the pleading amendments allowed, the agreements the parties reached, and the issues those agreements have narrowed the case down to. From that point on, the order controls how the case proceeds, and a court will change it later only to prevent manifest injustice. Courts can also set up a standing pretrial calendar for scheduling these conferences, whether for jury cases, non-jury cases, or both.

Section K backs the whole process with a real sanction. If a party doesn’t show up at the pretrial conference without a just excuse — or shows up through a lawyer who’s grossly unprepared — the court can order that party or attorney to pay the other side’s reasonable expenses, including attorney’s fees, or take other appropriate action.