Post 7: Empowered!

In a rather strange way, I was empowered in my ability to perform the task of being a pro se litigant by Allstate’s stalling on moving forward with my suit in June 2021 and starting the discovery in August 2022, as the Virginia Circuit Court demands a span of 12 months to moving forward with a suit. The 14-month inactivity of the suit had enabled me to read a dozen or so lawsuits against Allstate in depth and I thus acquired a reasonable amount of legal knowledge, which I woefully lacked when I started the suit in 2021. At that time, I read other’s complaints merely to learn the format and to copy their language.

The 14-month self-training enabled me to respond to Allstate’s requests for admissions and interrogatories with ease. I provided 93% (27 out of 29) response to the former and 95.85% (23 out of 24) to the latter. But Allstate took the position of blanket denial of my 30 requests for admissions and 17 interrogatories. So was the case of the production of documents, Allstate produced none, while I produced over 200 pages of documents in providing 81% response (38 out of 47) to Allstate, whereas I merely requested 11 productions of documents. In reading the court procedure manual, my understanding is that the court frowns upon the act of blanket denial in discovery. However, it is time consuming to go through the court for the documents. I knew where they were located. But I needed time to sort them out. I utilized a procedural device somewhat peculiar to the Virginia court, which is, the right to nonsuit (Va. Code §8.01-380), which is a voluntary withdrawal or dismissal of a lawsuit by the party that filed it that allows the party to bring a second suit, within six months, on the same cause of action. (See MyData/Misc. Doc./C.)

I have had six months to improve my complaint and grow my legal and court ability to fight Allstate. I relished that!

I produced a 41-page Complaint After Nonsuit with 161-page supporting documents, which can be found under New Suit.