Overview
The Discrepancy Report Engine identifies the points at which the evidence in a case does not hold together: a witness whose account the documents contradict, a figure that does not reconcile, an obligation that was not performed, a notice said never to have been given. It works across the whole record and ranks each conflict by its materiality to the case.
It does not depend on counsel knowing what to look for. The report includes the conflicts the team expects and those no one has yet identified, so the strongest lines of cross-examination, and the weaknesses in the client’s own case, are known early.
Where it is used
Cross-examination
The documents that contradict each witness, with both accounts ready to be put.
The client’s own case
Weaknesses in the client’s evidence identified early, while they can still be addressed.
Pleadings and correspondence
The other side’s pleaded case tested against its own documents.
Settlement
An informed view of the strength of each side’s position when settlement is considered.
In practice
In the matter shown, the project architect testified that her office never received notice that the panel core had been changed.
… “There was never a core-change notice. Article 3.5 requires thirty days in writing before the change takes effect, with the test report for the changed assembly. This office never received one, and without one there was nothing to review.”
Priya Raman, Brantley Rowe Architects P.C. · Raman Dep. 214:6–11
The record contains an email sent to her office on 17 June 2021:
“Priya, attaching the current product data sheet for the panel we are running on Rivergate. Please note the core designation now reads PE rather than the FR grade shown in the earlier issue, following the value engineering item that was accepted in February.”
Atlas Curtainwall Systems Inc. · BRA-EM-0912, p.2, para 1 · 17 June 2021
The finding sets the witness’s evidence against the email, ranked high, ready to be put in cross-examination.
The report
The discrepancy report for the matter shown, ranked by materiality.
High · Scope conflict
NFPA 285 certification rests on a report whose own scope excludes a polyethylene core
Certified in the submittal
against
Scope of the only report produced
High · Specification conflict
Specification prohibits a polyethylene core; the purchase order buys one
Specification requires
against
Purchase order buys
High · Arithmetic error
VE-17 total exceeds the sum of its own line items by $412,000
Stated total
against
Itemised line 05
High · Testimony vs document
No core-change notice under Article 3.5, against a data sheet emailed to the Architect
Testimony
against
Contemporaneous email
Medium · Missing reference
Answer pleads Exhibit K; the exhibit sequence runs A to J and resumes at L
Pleaded
against
Production index
How it works
Dates, figures, obligations and assertions are extracted from every document and compared across the record: testimony against documents, document against document, and each party against its own earlier account. Objective conflicts, such as arithmetic errors and missing exhibits, are stated as findings; those that call for judgement are put to counsel to accept or dismiss.