How do I subpoena records from another state?

Question: How do I subpoena records from another state? (a/k/a "Letter Rogatory", "Letter of Request", or "Commission to Take Out-of-State Deposition")

Definition: A letter rogatory is a formal request from a court in one state to "the appropriate judicial authorities" in another state requesting compulsion of testimony or documentary or other evidence or effect service of process.

Background: A Louisiana attorney wanted to subpoena medical records from a Houston (Harris County) physician. The case was filed in Louisiana. The attorney obtained a signed "commission" from the Louisiana court authorizing him to subpoena the records. He wanted to know if he could simply send the commission to the physician's records custodian, along with his notice and subpoena, to get the records.

Answer: Yes and No. It depends upon the particular state. Most states require that you (1) hire local counsel*, (2) prepare a letter of request to the out of state (Harris County) clerk asking the court to open a "miscellaneous action" and issue a subpoena, (3) submit necessary filing fee, and (4) file the commission granted by the home (Louisiana) court. The out of state (Harris County) clerk's office assigns a cause number to the case and issues a (Texas) subpoena. This compels the witness to appear and testify in the same manner and by the same process as employed for taking testimony in matters pending in Texas.

*Note: As in-house counsel for Keais, I serve as the "local counsel" in Texas for our clients at no cost. For cases pending outside of Texas, I help locate local counsel, if needed.

This does not mean that you cannot attempt to obtain records by sending the signed commission, notices and a (Louisiana) subpoena to the records custodian. The custodian may abide by the request and provide you the records. HOWEVER, should the custodian be reluctant in abiding by your request, you may still need to go through the above outlined steps to get the foreign court to enforce your subpoena.

If you have any questions on foreign subpoenas, please let us know if we can help.

Good luck!

Melanie

The Entire Record

How do you know whether or not you have received the entire record from a medical provider? You actually cannot really tell unless you go through each page of the record and chronologically organize it. Then you have to look at the top and bottom of each page to find identifiers that indicate that the progress note, lab report or physician order don't appear to continue on another page. Often the page will indicate page 3 of 4. These are easy, but only if you chronologically organize them. Then, once organized you have to call the provider and ask that the missing pages be mailed or faxed to be inserted prior to bates numbering and distribution. Keais has to go back to the provider 35% of the time to have missing pages resent for insertion prior to bates numbering.

Some firms have their own staff organize records. While this seems to save time and money and many feel that a records company wouldn't be as thorough, these are all misconceptions. First, the fact that Keais can fill in missing pages prior to delivery, eliminates a lot of delay. Keais has a staff that has fine tuned the process of organizing and provides a meticulously arranged chart for much less than a legal secretary's hourly rate.
Lawyers and Expert Witnesses time spent on a chart is drastically reduced and much more thorough when they start with a Keais Organized Record!