(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.
The purpose of this requirement—that defendant have time to obtain counsel before a response must be made—is adequately fulfilled by the requirement that interrogatories be served upon a party with or after service of the summons and complaint upon him.
Each interrogatory shall be answered separately and fully in writing under oath, unless it is objected to, in which event the reasons for objection shall be stated in lieu of an answer.
You can use interrogatories to find out facts about a case but they cannot be used for questions that draw a legal conclusion.
Civ. P. 33(b)(1)(B), (3) and (5), and Petitioner never moved to compel a proper verification.” Under Rule 33, answers to interrogatories must be verified and must be signed by the person answering the interrogatory, not only by the party's attorney.
A photocopy of your form interrogatories must be served on the attorney for the responding party or directly to the responding party if he or she is self-represented (in pro per). Courtesy copies should be served on all other attorneys or self-represented parties in the case.
For interrogatories, action words such as “list,” “describe,” “identify,” or “state” are very useful. You may ask the other side to identify a document but you cannot use this form of discovery to get them to give it to you. Requesting documents requires a different kind of discovery process.
The original form interrogatories and signed proof of service should be retained for your records. If the other party does not respond to your requests, you may use these documents to support a motion to have the court compel responses.
Use a Special Interrogatory (sometimes called a Specially Prepared Interrogatory) if you want to write the questions yourself. You use this if you want to ask questions that are specific to your case and are not included on the Form Interrogatory form.