Georgia Senate Bill 68, signed into law by Governor Brian Kemp on April 21, 2025, introduces significant changes to the state’s civil litigation landscape. Most notable is the implementation of a mandatory 90-day stay of discovery after a litigant files a motion to dismiss. This provision takes effect on July 1, 2025, and allows defendants to challenge the validity of a case without the immediate burden of discovery, potentially saving time and resources if the motion is successful.
Recently, the Missouri legislature passed Senate Bill 224 outlining a brand new set of discovery rules for Missouri state-court cases. These new rules represent a comprehensive revision to the existing rules and make the Missouri rules align significantly with those of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Under the Missouri constitution, the statute took effect on August 28, 2019 overriding the existing rules. However, the Missouri Supreme Court cannot promulgate a new rule with less than six months’ notice, which means that the new rule would not formally be in effect before March or April of 2020. Furthermore, the Supreme Court’s Rules Committee was recently advised that the Supreme Court has not updated its website to reflect the changes made in SB 224.