The availability of pre-action discovery as a legal remedy belies the sense of many practitioners that alleged wrongdoing must be linked to a specific wrongdoer to be actionable. While a cause of action at its essence is a set of facts that give one person the legal right to hold another person responsible for resulting damages, with pre-action discovery a plaintiff formulates a cause of action from the facts before knowing who to hold responsible for the damages that flowed from those facts.
This article will explore the general implications of initiating legal action without an identified defendant, how New York courts have applied this rule of civil procedure, and the mechanics of pre-action discovery.
