Interrogatories are a discovery tool that the parties can use to have specific questions about a case answered before trial. Interrogatories are lists of questions sent to the other party that s/he must respond to in writing.
Interrogatories are written questions sent by one party to another, which the responding party must answer under penalty of perjury.
Interrogatories allow the parties to ask who, what, when, where and why questions, making them a good method for obtaining new information in a case. There are two types of interrogatories: form interrogatories and special interrogatories.
You can use interrogatories to find out facts about a case but they cannot be used for questions that draw a legal conclusion.
After you complete your response, you'll need to share your responses with the opposing side. You follow a specific court process to do this called serving papers.
Definition: Written questions submitted to a party from his or her adversary to ascertain answers that are prepared in writing and signed under oath and that have relevance to the issues in a lawsuit.
If you do not answer the questions by the deadline, which is usually about a month, the other side could ask the judge to order you to respond to the interrogatories. If you miss the second deadline, the judge could impose a fine against you or strike your pleadings.
(a) A defendant may propound interrogatories to a party to the action without leave of court at any time. (b) A plaintiff may propound interrogatories to a party without leave of court at any time that is 10 days after the service of the summons on, or appearance by, that party, whichever occurs first.
(b) Except as provided in Section 2030.070, no party shall, as a matter of right, propound to any other party more than 35 specially prepared interrogatories. If the initial set of interrogatories does not exhaust this limit, the balance may be propounded in subsequent sets.
Serve your Form Interrogatories by mail Choose a server. You can't serve papers yourself. Have your server mail the papers. Your server mails the papers to your spouse or partner using regular first class mail. Fill out Proof of Service form. You can use Proof of Service by Mail (form FL-335). Keep the Proof of Service.