§ 2030.030.Specially prepared and official form interrogatories; limit on number of specially

This is the section every California litigator has memorized: absent a supporting declaration, a party may propound no more than 35 specially prepared interrogatories, questions drafted for the particular case, to any other party as a matter of right. That cap runs separately from official form interrogatories, the standardized Judicial Council forms covering routine subjects, which carry no numeric limit at all. A party can combine both freely: 35 case-specific questions plus as many relevant form interrogatories as the case calls for.

The 35-question limit is not exhausted all at once. If an initial set of specially prepared interrogatories uses fewer than 35, the unused balance can be propounded in later sets, so a party is not forced to front-load every question into a single service. And the cap is self-enforcing on the response side: if a propounding party serves more than 35 specially prepared interrogatories without attaching the declaration Section 2030.050 requires, the responding party need only answer the first 35 and may object to the rest on the specific ground that the limit under this section has been exceeded, an objection Section 2030.240 requires be stated clearly.