What Is Discovery in a Divorce Case?
Discovery is the formal exchange of information between the two sides after a case is filed and before it is tried.
It is how each side finds out what the other has, what they earn, what they owe and what they intend to prove. Everything that happens at trial is built out of it.
Discovery in divorce cases is also where most of the money goes. That is the honest part nobody leads with, and it is the reason the choices below matter more than the definitions.
How Wide Is Discovery Allowed to Be?
Broad, but not unlimited, and Missouri added a proportionality test that gives you something to argue with.
Rule 56.01 sets the scope. A party may obtain discovery regarding “any matter, not privileged, that is relevant to the subject matter involved in the pending action.”
So discovery in divorce reaches income, accounts, debts, schedules and anything else bearing on a contested issue. The same rule then requires that discovery be “proportional to the needs of the case considering the totality of the circumstances,” weighing the importance of the issues, the amount in controversy, the parties’ access to the information and whether the burden outweighs the likely benefit.
That proportionality language is a cost argument in a rule. If the other side is demanding ten years of records in a case with one contested account, the rule itself gives you the words for the objection.
What Are the 6 Simple Tools of Discovery in Divorce?
Six devices, each with its own limits, and the limits are tighter than most people assume.
- Interrogatories. Written questions the other party answers in writing. Rule 57.01 caps them at “no more than 25 written interrogatories, including all discrete subparts” absent a stipulation, a court order or a local rule
- Depositions. Sworn questioning in person, on the record. Rule 57.03 requires “not less than seven days notice in writing” and requires leave of court once one side would exceed ten depositions
- Requests for production. Documents and things. Rule 58.01 expressly reaches “electronically stored information including writings, drawings, graphs, charts, photographs, sound recordings, images, electronic records”
- Requests for admissions. Statements the other side must admit or deny. Rule 59.01 caps these at 25 as well, with an exception for requests about the genuineness or admissibility of documents
- Subpoenas. The way information comes from someone who is not a party, such as a bank or an employer, under Rule 57.09
- Examinations. Rule 60.01 covers physical, mental and blood examinations, and in its own separate paragraph, vocational evaluation
Twenty five is not many. In a case with income, three accounts, a house, a pension and a schedule, a careless interrogatory set burns half its budget on questions the other side would have answered in an email.
There is also a rarely used seventh device. Rule 57.02 allows a deposition to perpetuate testimony before an action is even filed, on a verified petition and thirty days notice. It exists for the case where a witness may not be available later.
Why Are Requests for Admissions the Most Dangerous Item on That List?
Because ignoring them is not a delay. It is an answer.
Rule 59.01 requires the request itself to carry a warning in capital letters. “A FAILURE TO TIMELY RESPOND TO REQUESTS FOR ADMISSIONS IN COMPLIANCE WITH RULE 59.01 SHALL RESULT IN EACH MATTER BEING ADMITTED BY YOU AND NOT SUBJECT TO FURTHER DISPUTE.”
The rule means it. A matter admitted “is conclusively established unless the court on motion permits withdrawal or amendment of the admission.”
Translated. A stack of paper that sits on a kitchen counter for a month can decide a contested fact without anyone arguing about it. If you get served with anything in a divorce, the requests for admissions are the item to open first.
One limit worth knowing in the other direction. An admission “is for the purpose of the pending action only and is not an admission by the party for any other purpose nor may it be used against the party in any other proceeding.”
What Happens If Someone Just Ignores Discovery?
There is a rule for that, and it starts by closing the obvious loophole.
Rule 61.01 provides that a failure to act “may not be excused on the ground that the discovery sought is objectionable unless the party failing to act has served timely objections to the discovery request or has applied for a protective order.”
Then it adds the sentence that does the most work. “For the purpose of this Rule 61, an evasive or incomplete answer is to be treated as a failure to answer.”
Note what that does. A half answer is not a partial win. Under the rule it is the same as no answer at all.
Where interrogatories go unanswered, the rule allows the court, on motion and reasonable notice, to take action including “an order striking pleadings or parts thereof or dismissing the action or proceeding or any part thereof or render a judgment by default against the disobedient party,” or to grant more time on a showing of reasonable excuse with those consequences attached if the new deadline is missed.
We are not going to tell you what any particular judge would do with a particular failure. What we can tell you is what the rule permits, and it permits a great deal.
Can We Skip Formal Discovery and Just Exchange Documents?
Often yes, and in cooperative cases it is the single biggest saving available.
A great deal of discovery in divorce happens by agreement. Attorneys routinely exchange tax returns, pay records, account statements and appraisals informally rather than through formal requests. It is faster, it is cheaper, and it keeps the tone of the case down.
Here is the trade off nobody mentions. Rule 61.01 has no application to a handshake. If an informal exchange stalls, you have lost the time and still have to start the formal process. The usual answer is to try the informal route with a deadline attached, and to convert to formal requests the moment it slips.
Some disclosure happens regardless. Most of these courts require a sworn financial statement, and our page on the statement of income and expenses covers what goes into it and what happens if it is wrong.
What Does Discovery in Divorce Cost and Can I Make My Spouse Pay?
Cost tracks the tools you choose, and the fee statute reaches costs as well as attorney fees.
Depositions carry a court reporter and attorney time. Experts carry their own fees, and Rule 56.01 lets the court require the party seeking discovery from an expert to pay that expert a reasonable hourly fee. Interrogatories and requests for production are usually the cheapest place to start.
Section 452.355.1 RSMo lets a court order one party to pay a reasonable amount toward the other’s costs and attorney fees in any proceeding under Sections 452.300 to 452.415. Our page on making a spouse pay your legal bill covers how that request is actually framed, and our page on what a divorce costs in St. Louis covers the wider budget.
We do not publish discovery price ranges here, because the number depends on which of the six tools your case actually needs. Ask us and we will walk through it against your facts.
How Does Discovery Connect to Trial?
It decides what you are able to prove, which is a narrower thing than what is true.
Witness lists, expert opinions and documents all come out of discovery in divorce cases. Our pages on bringing witnesses to a divorce trial, on a psychological evaluation and on a vocational exam each cover a piece of that.
Discovery also feeds the property side directly. You cannot argue about a division under Section 452.330 RSMo without the account histories, and tracing a separate asset is a documents exercise before it is a legal one. See how marital property gets divided and how to protect assets during a divorce.
What Does Discovery Not Do?
Three things, and each one surprises somebody every year.
It does not make a document admissible. Producing a bank statement in discovery and getting it into evidence at trial are separate steps with separate rules.
It does not decide the case. Discovery in divorce gathers. The judge decides, on the statutory factors that apply to each issue.
And it does not have to be complete before you can settle. Most cases resolve with a good deal known and some things unknown, and deciding when you know enough is a judgment call rather than a rule.
What Should You Never Do in Discovery in Divorce?
Four things, and all four are worse than the problem they were meant to solve.
- Guess at an answer. Discovery answers are sworn. If you do not know, the answer says you do not know and what you did to find out
- Leave an asset off. An omission found later is worse than the asset was ever worth, and the burden it creates is covered on our assets page
- Miss a deadline quietly. Rule 61.01 rewards a timely objection or a protective order motion, and gives nothing to silence
- Treat an incomplete answer as good enough. The rule already says an evasive or incomplete answer counts as no answer, in both directions
Who Can Help With Discovery in a St. Louis Divorce?
The value is in choosing which tools to use, because that decision sets both the cost and the record.
Bardol Law Firm practices only family law, and we are in the St. Louis County, St. Louis City, St. Charles County and Jefferson County courts regularly. If you have been served with discovery in divorce and the stack looks impossible, bring it in with the dates on it, because the deadlines matter more than the volume. If you are the one deciding what to send, we will tell you honestly which requests are worth the spend in your case and which ones are theater. Our other family law questions and answers cover the neighboring steps.
You should not have to chase your attorney for basic updates while deadlines are running. Every client here has a named paralegal on the file, and we generally return calls within one business day.
Family Law, Simplified.
If a set of discovery has landed and you are not sure what is urgent in it, that is a call worth making today rather than next week. Contact Bardol Law Firm or call 314.918.0100.
This page is general information about Missouri law and is not legal advice. Every case turns on its own facts. The choice of a lawyer is an important decision and should not be based solely upon advertisements.