I frequently see parties involved in litigation who are furious at the other side for the things they have asked for in their paperwork. Most often this comes up in family law cases when children are involved and one side is asking the court to exclude one party from seeing the child or to severely limit access to the child in some other way like supervised possession. But it happens in more tame situations as well. A request for spousal maintenance or a reimbursement claim can set people off. It can also happen in non-family cases. In civil cases, people are often outraged at the amount of money the other party is claiming they are owed. A request for attorney’s fees in any type of case can be upsetting.
It’s the law’s fault.
The problem is that the law requires a party to a suit to list everything it wants in its pleadings filed with the court. To put it simply, if you don’t ask for it, you can’t get it. Rule 47 of the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure outlines what must be pled for in a civil suit, and section 102.008 of the Texas Family Code does the same for a family law suit. If you want something, or even if you think you might want something depending on information obtained during the lawsuit, you have to ask the court for it in the pleadings.