These two some principles on the law of civil procedure which were regarded as basic. They included the following propositions. First, it is an abuse of process to sue someone solely for the purpose Aileen to the suit itself, or to use interlocutory procedure is not relevant to the dispute is between the parties on the record. Forbidden purposes include the bringing of pressure on the opposing party to drop or compromise some of the dispute. They also include the purpose of ascertaining who else was liable to the plaintiff, this was a forbidden purpose no matter whether the plaintiff intended to sue the stranger as well, or in the alternative, let alone if the intention was to extract a non-judicial remedy from the stranger. Pre-trial discovery, therefore, was limited to the issues as between the parties, and could not be used purely collateral purpose or to find out who else to sue.

Second, discovery would not be allowed if it constituted a fishing expedition, the term never defined in a satisfactory manner. But despite the lack of precision in the prohibition of fishing expeditions, there are clearly was a line between permissible discovery and attempts a discovery which went too far. It appears that discovery was fishing if the party seeking it was quite the rest of any case, and was hoping to make case from the discovery exercise. In a sense, of course, discovery has always been intended to assist a party to make their case, but that assistance would be denied if the party was unable even to plead the bare outlines of the complaint. In that situation, the case was said to be merely speculative, and the courts refused assistance.

Third, and sometimes as a consequence of the first proposition, it was a basic proposition that whilst a subpoena could compel a stranger to testify at the trial, there was no pre-trial discovery against a non-party, a stranger to the suit. Fourth, one of the classic differences between the adversarial system and the inquisitorial system is that only the former draws a sharp distinction between pre-trial and trial. Everything leads up to and is designated to assist the trial in a classic adversarial system. The trial itself is meant to be continuous. The typical inquisitorial case involves a discontinuous trial, with no period been marked off as pre-trial. These are some of the basic principles which apply in relation to discovery in legal proceedings.