[blindLaw] ascertaining fraudulent documents

[Nikki Singh]

Hi Rahul,

I am not an IP trial attorney, but at some point, I will be dealing
with fraudulent documents in discovery. One important thing to keepin
mind is that the documents are rarely going to plainly show that they
are fraudulent on their face. Sure, you will focus on dates and
signatures. However, you need to learn the story about the documents:
who reviewed them? When? For what purpose? What did the reviewer or
signer know about the documents? How did they get to his or her desk?
Why? Who else saw them? What was going on in the professional or
business context at the company where the review or signer was
employed?

You learn that story through a variety of discovery devices. In
America (whose discovery process I know best), you will have other
documents that you can compare to the ones you believe are forged. You
may need a human reader to assist with this specific portion. You can
depose a witness, the person who signed the documents in this case,
and ask questions. You can clarify what you heard in the deposition
with interrogatories, questions posed in written form. You can build a
chronology of the key events and evaluate based on the evidence you
gathered what fact is more likely than not. Discovery is a long and
often indirect process. Things become clearer near the end once you
have the universe of facts pinned down. The essential goal of learning
the story--discovering what happened--is not dramatically impeded by
blindness, though you may have to work around certain issues. Parties
are not going to have accessible documents because they cannot know
that they will be involved in a law suit in the future where one of
the attorneys is blind.

Hope this helps.

Sincerely,
Nikki

On 1/15/24, Rahul Bajaj via BlindLaw <blindlaw at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> I am currently attending an appeal in the Delhi High Court that my firm is
> involved in. While I am not staffed in this matter, while listening to the
> appeal, my mind has travelled in the following direction. How can a blind
> lawyer ascertain if some documents that the other side is relying on are
> fraudulent. This is a trademark infringement and passing off case. Our
> argument is that the documents that the other side has cited to state that
> they are prior user of the mark. We argue that those documents are forged
> and that the court below erred in relying on them. How would a blind lawyer
> be able to conduct such a fact-finding exercise, as part of the discovery
> process?
>
> Look forward to your inputs.
>
> Warmly,
>
> Rahul
>
> --
> --
> Rahul Bajaj
> Rhodes Scholar (India and Linacre 2018), University of Oxford
> Co-Founder, Mission Accessibility
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