Fast-Tracking

Fast-Tracking is a procedure for bringing selected civil cases to trial faster than the ordinary docket would allow. In the Black family’s case against Great Benefit, it became more than a scheduling device: Tyrone Kipler’s use of the procedure set a firm discovery timetable and helped ensure that Donny Ray Black’s testimony could be preserved for trial. The contrast with the earlier risk of dismissal under Harvey Hale shows how judicial discretion and control of procedure could shape whether the family’s insurance dispute received a hearing at all.

Definition and Procedural Purpose

The procedure emerged from a wider set of changes intended to speed civil justice. The reforms increased sanctions for frivolous suits, imposed mandatory deadlines for pretrial work, and gave judges greater authority to manage litigation and participate in settlement efforts. Fast-Tracking was one part of that system, a way to move certain cases ahead of others rather than allow every dispute to proceed at the same pace.

Parties may request an accelerated schedule, but the procedure is rarely requested by both sides: defendants are generally reluctant to agree to a quicker trip to court. The judge can order it on the court’s own initiative. The stated rationale is strongest when the issues are straightforward, the facts are clearly defined yet sharply contested, and a jury’s decision is the principal remaining step. The process therefore depends not only on what the parties want, but also on a judge’s assessment of what the case requires.

The Black Case and the Request

The possibility of judicial discretion mattered in the Black family’s case because Harvey Hale had appeared inclined to dismiss the suit. He said he was tired of cases of this type and was considering granting the defense motion to dismiss, suggesting that the family could refile in federal court. Rudy Baylor’s experience of that hearing made the case’s prospects seem vulnerable to the judge’s attitude toward claims against insurers and large corporations.

After Hale’s death and Tyrone Kipler’s appointment, Rudy sought a different course. The Black case was his only substantial case, and he wanted it fast-tracked. He raised the idea with Booker Kane, who conveyed it to Kipler. When Kipler met with Rudy, he had already reviewed the active cases and was looking for matters that could move quickly. Rudy argued that the issues were simple and that there would not be many witnesses. He had not yet taken a deposition and estimated that there would be fewer than ten.

Kipler cautioned that the documents could be a particular obstacle. In his experience, insurance companies did not always produce all the paperwork to which opposing parties were entitled, and obtaining it could take time. His plan joined acceleration with active judicial supervision: Rudy was to file a motion, the defense would oppose it, and the court would hold a hearing. Kipler proposed four months for discovery, including depositions, document exchanges, and written interrogatories, followed by the setting of a trial date.

The Hearing and the Court’s Order

At the motions hearing, the parties’ dispute over timing unfolded alongside other procedural conflicts. Leo F. Drummond sought to move the case to federal court, arguing that Bobby Ott had been improperly included as a defendant. He also sought security for costs and sanctions. Kipler rejected the defense motions and kept the case in the state court. The sequence exposed a contrast in courtroom practice: Kipler pressed counsel to add something beyond the written briefs rather than repeat them at length.

When the court turned to Fast-Tracking, defense counsel T. Pierce Morehouse argued that an accelerated schedule would burden both sides. Kipler challenged the objection by asking whether Morehouse had ever agreed to fast-track a case. When Morehouse said he had, Kipler asked him to identify it and set a deadline for providing the case name and court. Morehouse could not provide the example during the hearing. Kipler then granted the motion, ordered Great Benefit’s answer within seven days, and set discovery to begin then and end 120 days later. That deadline put the four-month schedule Kipler had proposed into effect.

The court also considered Rudy’s related request to expedite Donny Ray’s deposition. Rudy had submitted an affidavit from Dr. Walter Kord stating that Donny Ray was not expected to live much longer. The defense response focused on scheduling, while Drummond did not dispute the affidavit’s validity. Kipler pressed the defense to address the need to record Donny Ray’s testimony and required the parties to move toward setting a date. The request made the human urgency behind the schedule explicit: the ordinary pace of discovery risked leaving the case without the testimony of a seriously ill plaintiff.

Enforcement and the Accelerated Case

The accelerated timetable did not eliminate disputes over access to evidence or the availability of witnesses. Rudy noticed depositions of six Great Benefit employees, including the company’s designated representative, for October 5 at the company’s Cleveland offices. Drummond objected that he was occupied with another trial; the defense also maintained that the employees could not readily be assembled. Kipler arranged a hearing to address the conflict on the record, after Drummond indicated that it might take two months to make time and that coordinating the employees could take months more.

The episode shows what Fast-Tracking required in practice. Setting a deadline was only the beginning: the judge also had to confront scheduling claims and the time needed to obtain evidence from a corporate defendant. The procedure did not make discovery effortless or guarantee that every witness would be promptly available. It gave Kipler a framework for insisting that these obstacles be addressed within a case already moving toward trial.

Trial Consequences and Significance

By the middle of January, the parties were working through proposed pretrial orders, and the trial was approaching. At trial, Dot Black described the family’s efforts to obtain treatment and read the successive denial letters to the jury. Donny Ray’s recorded deposition, edited to thirty-one minutes, was played for the jurors. The case was tried over four days, and Rudy’s closing argument drew on testimony and statistical evidence concerning Great Benefit’s claims and denials in 1991.

Fast-Tracking’s significance lies in the way it connected courtroom procedure to the opportunity to present that evidence. Kipler’s order established a short discovery window; his attention to scheduling disputes kept the timetable a live issue; and the expedited deposition request addressed the possibility that Donny Ray might not be able to testify later. The procedure could not itself decide whether Great Benefit had acted wrongly, nor did a fast schedule remove the disparity between a new lawyer and a corporate defense team. It did, however, move the dispute toward a jury and make the timely preservation and presentation of testimony part of the court’s work.