§16.5 Purpose and Procedure

• Jurisdiction: Washington

§16.5PURPOSE AND PROCEDURE

CR 16 was initially adopted with hopes of shortening trial time and isolating the issues to be decided at trial. The overall objectives of the pretrial conference and order are to eliminate surprise at trial and to determine the disputed and undisputed issues of law and fact. The rule further encourages the parties to reach agreement on evidentiary and admissibility issues, among others, to facilitate an efficient trial process. In most circumstances, it is important that the parties have completed or substantially completed discovery and any other related groundwork to accomplish these objectives.

Caveat: CR 26(f) provides for discovery conferences and authorization for the court to combine such a conference with a pretrial conference authorized by CR 16. In most circumstances, however, a CR 26(f) conference should occur early in the discovery process whereas a CR 16 conference should occur shortly before or after the discovery cutoff.

Until the litigation explosion of the 1970s and 1980s, courts overlooked CR 16 for decades. Prior to this time, courts infrequently used CR 16 principally because it was purely discretionary and, unless ordered by the court, voluntary on the part of the parties. Moreover, unless a county used preassignment procedures or a standard preassigned calendar, the...