Rule 33.Interrogatories to parties

Interrogatories are written questions one party sends another, to be answered in writing under oath. If the party served is a corporation, partnership, association, or governmental agency, an officer or agent who has access to the relevant information supplies the answers on the entity's behalf. A plaintiff can be served with interrogatories as soon as the defendant is served with the summons and complaint, or the complaint is filed, whichever happens first; any other party can be served with or after being served with the summons and complaint. No court order is needed to send them, which is why interrogatories are often among the first discovery tools a party reaches for.

Rule 33(a) sets formatting and timing rules meant to keep answers organized and predictable. Each interrogatory needs a blank space after it sized to hold the response, and if the answering party instead responds on separate pages, it has to label each answer with the number -- and subpart, if any -- of the question it addresses. Every interrogatory must be answered separately and fully in writing, under oath, unless the responding party objects, in which case the reasons for the objection replace an answer. Answers are signed by the person who gave them; objections are signed by the attorney who raised them. The response window is 30 days after the interrogatories are served, except that a defendant gets 40 days after being served with the summons and complaint. If a party disputes an objection or claims another party has not answered adequately, either side can bring the dispute to the court through a Rule 37(a) motion.

Rule 33(b) ties the scope of interrogatories to the general discovery scope in Rule 26(b), and the answers can be used at trial to the extent the rules of evidence allow. The rule heads off two common objections before they can be raised: an interrogatory is not objectionable merely because answering it calls for an opinion or a contention mixing law and fact, though the court can order that this kind of question be answered later, after more discovery has developed or closer to a pretrial conference; and an interrogatory is not objectionable merely because the party asking it could get the information some other way, or bears the burden of proof on the underlying issue at trial.

Rule 33(c) gives a responding party an alternative to writing out a narrative answer. If the answer can be found in the responding party's business records, including electronically stored information, or produced through an examination or audit of those records, and if digging out the answer would burden both sides about equally, the responding party can instead point to the specific records, described in enough detail for the interrogating party to locate and identify them as readily as the record-holder could, and give reasonable access to examine, copy, or summarize them.