Discovery: What Are Interrogatories?

The first phase of a lawsuit is the written discovery phase. In it, the parties exchange requests for disclosure, interrogatories, requests for production, and maybe rquests for admissions.

The initial disclosures (discussed here) is an automatic requirement that parties exchange some basic information about the case.

The remaining three discovery tools, while still general sometimes, are more tailored to the specifics of the case. The specific tool for this discussion is interrogatories. Interrogatories are questions that one side sends to the other side to be answered under oath — that means that the person responding has to sign and swear before a notary public that the answers are truthful.

Again, we usually send the interrogatories to the client and ask the client to answer them on his or her own so that we get the best answer. We’ll then work with the client to come up with a final form.

Here are some examples of interrogatories based on questions from a real car accident case. Unlike requests for disclosures, which are identical from case to case, interrogatories change from lawyer to lawyer. But this example is fairly standard and should give you an idea about what an auto accident lawyer might have to respond to in a case.

In most cases, a party is limited to sending thirty interrogatories to the other side. You’ll notice in this example that there are fewer than thirty interrogatories. This allows the other side to follow up with a few additional questions as the case goes forward.