Making Sense of Form Interrogatories: A Definitive Guide

What Are Form Interrogatories?

Form interrogatories are written questions that a party in a California lawsuit sends to the other party in a lawsuit (or sometimes to a witness). The responding party must sign those form interrogatories and return them in writing. The other party must sign the response and return it to the serving party.
The form interrogatories usually have five different categories, and typically hold about 35 total questions.
Many form interrogatories have default answers and model answers containing instructions. These default answers might be filled in electronically, or the responding party might fill them out by hand. In either case, the responding party will check the "yes" or "no" box next to the question. If the responding party is unsure of how to answer, he or she might add an additional clarification using the blank space.
Many form interrogatories will have both a "default" answer and a "model" answer. These answers limit the responding party’s ability to provide additional explanation , which might simplify the response for the other party.
Form interrogatories are part of the discovery process, which governs what evidence and information parties can share during lawsuits. They are also relatively easy to answer because they are in a prescribed form. Most of the form interrogatories are very straightforward, asking for things such as evidence, facts and parties. They help parties gather information that will be later useful for trial or settlement negotiations.
The other party must respond to form interrogatories within 30 days. However, if the party has asked the court to extend time to respond, the deadline might be on a different date. Both the serving party and the responding party will receive an extension when the court allows the responding party to extend time.

Different Forms of Interrogatories

California has prescribed a number of Uniform interrogatories that are tailored to various types of cases. These form interrogatories cover a wide range of topics based on the topic covered by the Uniform discovery act rules. The following are brief overviews of the specific set of Uniform form interrogatories that have been adopted. All of these form interrogatories were adopted years ago and many of the questions contained in the different form Interrogatories may no longer be pertinent based on changes in California law or the type of case being handled.
The following is a listing of some of the more common uniform form interrogatories used in California: The Civil Case Discovery Act, Code of Civil Procedure §§ 2016.010 et seq., California civil discovery includes forms specifically created to help in the discovery of information relevant to the causes of action asserted by the parties in the pleadings. These forms are known as uniform interrogatories. There are many different varieties of uniform interrogatories. The question typically covers information specific to factors related to and common to various torts, transactions, and factual patterns. There are two sections of form interrogatories for personal injury cases. One set applies to comprehensive personal injury cases and another set applies to more routine personal injury and wrongful death cases. This subdivision is entitled Form Interrogatories-Family Law.
This subdivision is entitled Form Interrogatories-Employment Law. This subdivision is entitled Form Interrogatories-Miscellaneous Exclusive of Family Law and Employment Law. The uniform form interrogatories cover a large variety of different topics that are typically covered in every case. When employed correctly, they can be invaluable in the discovery of information necessary to mount an effective defense or prove one’s case.
They are used in almost every civil case including automobile accident cases, medical malpractice cases, business and employment law litigation, family law matters and more. Typically, there are form interrogatories specific to most areas of the law.

The Standard Form of Interrogatories

The "general form" of interrogatories is set forth in Rule 33.3(a), which states:
"In each case, the plaintiff shall serve a copy of the general form of interrogatories upon the defendant prior to entry of the initial case management order; provided that such interrogatories shall not be served upon a defendant who has filed a notice of tort claim."
The "general form" of interrogatories consists of a series of court-approved form interrogatories that are to be served upon the answering party prior to the case management conference. These form interrogatories include:
In addition, any other Uniform Interrogatories approved for statewide use, and supplemented by the Assignment Judge of then current venue, are also termed General Form Interrogatories. In other words, for every case being litigated, the plaintiff is required to serve the same set of form interrogatories upon the defendant/answering party once the case gets underway. The purpose and intent of this requirement is to streamline the process of initial discovery by requiring service of uniform interrogatories in all cases while providing each party with the right to ask for additional discovery if necessary. However, the Court can tailor the process so that the parties are not required to serve any of these interrogatories upon a party in the case where a different or private agreement between the parties exists.
In practice, the answering party will often answer most of these form interrogatories by stating "see responses of [other party] to discovery demands," while incorporating the responses to prior discovery. This response is not the correct manner to respond to these specific form interrogatories because these form interrogatories represent a party’s initial response to discovery. If the defendant is required to refer solely to the responses of another party, then that defendant cannot provide his or her own information in response to the interrogatory, despite the fact that the form interrogatory requests information from the responding party. A party’s responses to these form interrogatories should be complete and accurate and should not refer to responses or answers provided by other parties.

How to Draft and Answer Interrogatories

When preparing discovery responses, it is important to devote special attention to the Interrogatories served by your opponent. Each of the "Form" Interrogatories are to be individually answered and numbered in sequence in your response in accordance with CRC 3.1000(a)(1 )(B). It is advisable that responses to the questions be written out immediately after the question rather than prefacing your response with an overall answer for all of the questions at the end of the document.
Care needs to be taken that each and every question is answered. If there is no knowledge to a specific fact, then an objection may be served claiming a lack of knowledge. There is however a statutory requirement that the responding party use reasonable efforts to obtain the requested information if it can be discovered with reasonable effort. This means that if you or your client does not prepare the tax returns, then there needs to be some indication in the response that it is the accountant who prepares the returns where you have no knowledge. If the other party has served you with interrogatories requiring you to identify documents you have concerning a specific issue, then you must either produce those documents with your response, stipulate to the authenticity of the documents, or claim that you will allow the other party to inspect and copy them. If you have chosen to produce the documents, then you should attach them to your response. You then need to determine if a privilege applies to the documents. Unless a privilege will apply, then produce what you have. If you are producing more than 10 pages of documents, then you also have the right to charge the requesting party a reasonable copying fee.
Form interrogatories are not an open invitation to engage in an open discourse over their meaning and purpose. Most of the time, the responding party is expected to answer the question as reasonably understood. If however the questions are vague, ambiguous or incomprehensible, then the responding party can object to the questions and ask the court to construe whether they are appropriate or not. For instance, if a request calls for a party to state how a second party feels about any or every thing, then the objection may be appropriate since the party is under no obligation to be a mind reader and guess as to how the second party thinks, even if that second party is his child. Another example is if the Form Questions request to list all of your assets or all of your bank accounts. The objection would be that the responding party is not required to go to his bank and list every penny he has in each account. On the other hand, if the question asks for "all requests made for production of documents", then the responding party could simply state, "see my attached response to Requests for Production of Documents."

Legal Compliance and Issues

Form interrogatories are a commonly used tool in the California legal system, designed to elicit key information from the opposing party. However, their use is regulated by law and compliance with these requirements is crucial in order to avoid adverse legal consequences. To whom they are addressed and when they are to be served are governed by Section B. of the California Rules of Court, Rule 3.1000.
Generally speaking, form interrogatories are addressed to a party in an unlimited civil case, an underlying liability dispute involving personal, professional and employment injury claims. Responses to the interrogatories are typically due within 30 days of service of the interrogatories; however, in some cases a later response date or shorter response timeframe may be agreed upon by the parties after the form interrogatories have been served.
Form interrogatories must be properly served in accordance with Code of Civil Procedure sections 2031.020, 2031.030 and 2031.040.
The California Rules of Court contain specific guidelines concerning the number of pages of interrogatories that can be served on an opposing party:
•Four pages in an unlimited jurisdiction case for responses to Judicial Council Form Interrogatories; and
•Additional pages only up to 35 except by leave of court for good cause shown (see LASC Local Rule 7.15 , page 13-14).
If the proper form interrogatories are served on the opposing party and the opposing party fails to timely respond, the interrogatories will then be deemed admitted. (CCP section 2030.290.) If the party responds, its responses are generally due 35 calendar days after service of the requests, unless extended by an agreement between the parties.
If the response is inadequate or there is an objection, the propounding party has 35 calendar days to file a motion to compel further responses. The court should grant the motion and order a further response if the circumstances justify such an order. When a response was evasive or incomplete, the court is required to order a further response unless the objection is sustained or the responding party proves that a response is not required.
In most cases, a party cannot gain relief from admitting the requests for admissions for good cause if the stipulation denying such admissions was made solely by counsel and not by the parties. (CCP section 2033.300.)

Issues Associated with Interrogatories – and How to Get Around Them

A significant portion of the motion practice in civil litigation stems from disputes, whether express or not, about the responses to form interrogatories. At times, what is often informative and important communication between litigants descends into an unnecessary shouting match for both sides. The result, especially for the busy practitioner, is a colossal waste of time that could be better spent practicing your trade. This issue is compounded as a defendant often must evaluate the responses to form interrogatories to assess the potential exposure for the entire case. You often do not have the luxury of sending the defendant the form interrogatories on a piecemeal basis as your budget may not allow this.
There are basically two problems that dog the form interrogatory process; the improper objections and inadequate/ambiguous answers. The former is often accompanied by a "written objections," in which defendant’s counsel spends a considerable amount of time objecting "to the extent" that a form interrogatory is phrased in such a way as to prevent the provision of information or respond in such a way that it opens the door to irrelevant responsive information. A typical "form objection" is the phrase "insofar as known." This objection is often placed before every interrogatory, and does nothing more than annoy plaintiffs’ counsel (and perhaps the court) as it is often meaningless and irrelevant.
This does not, however, make the written objection a valid objection. As the Court of Appeal noted in Lofton v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. (2014) 226 Cal.App.4th 181, "[w]hen a trial court has issued an order compelling responses to interrogatories and the responding party continues to serve additional objections with its answers, the responding party has adopted a "see no evil, hear no evil" approach to discovery . . . No abuse of discretion results from the trial court’s refusal to ‘recycle’ this approach."
It must be noted that while the use of boilerplate objections, such as "overly broad," is grounds for finding that defendant has waived his objection, the Courts have recognized that the most effective objections upon which a party can rely include but are not limited to:
However, the most effective way to avoid such problems in the first place is for the party seeking the information to engage in the meet and confer process, as Civil Code Procedure section 2030.300 states:
"The meeting of the minds requirement under Code of Civil Procedure section 2030.300(a) is jurisdictional, and failure to informally resolve a dispute regarding interrogatories before bringing a motion to compel discovery prevents the trial court from ruling on the motion (Bennett v. Medtronic,292 F.R.D. 589,549-550 (E.D.Wis. 2013))."
Indeed, there is a strong public policy in favor of resolving disputes during the meet and confer process. As stated by the Court in Faust v. California Portland Cement Co., (2007) 148 Cal.App.4th 832, "We note, with some concern, that the parties, in this case, did not exhaust the full potential of informal resolution before racing to court for a hearing. Two steps could have made a difference if they had been taken before the motion to compel was filed. First, they could have – as the Code of Civil Procedure requires – met and conferred to attempt resolution of each of the disputed issues set forth in the moving papers. (See Cal. Civ. Proc. Code, § 2016.040.) Second – and more telling in this case – they could have attempted to resolve the issue of which interrogatories were objectionable and which were not. It appears from the moving papers, in fact, that plaintiff had no objection to 16 page-long requests for admission, nor did he have any objection to the Interrogatories he posed that mimicked the requests for admission. We cannot discern from the filings why the issues were not resolved."
The informal dispute resolution is not limited to interogatories alone. This is also true for motions to compel depositions, requests for admissions, and Requests for Production of Documents. These protections are not as robust as those associated with traditional discovery, but when conducting such informal discussions, the attorney’s fees and costs for the deposition may not be awarded to either party, even if plaintiff had to file a motion.
Another major source of disputes is over ambiguous or incomplete answers. The most damning one occurs when the responding party fails to respond at all. In such a situation, a party cannot review the responses for adequacy or for ambiguity. Failure to respond, regardless of the timing, is tantamount to a statement that the party will not provide any information. Therefore, the failure to respond to a form interrogatory does not waive the objection to the interrogatory. But, as the Court of Appeal pointed out in Lai v. Southern Pacific Milling Co. (1978) 78 Cal. App. 3d 749, "The trial court will set the place and time of examination and entry upon an order when the motion to compel is brought. . . . Unless the order to compel answers to interrogatories is disobeyed it will, of course, not be necessary to bring a supplementary motion to compel."
If the responding party reasonably responds that it will not provide the answer because it is too burdensome, and provides a declaration justifying its answer, the court may find that compelling the requesting party to respond to the interrogatory would be unreasonable and unduly burdensome, and instead side with the responding party.
So, how does one respond effectively? The most effective way to issue responses that will not lead to a battle between parties is to take the time to draft an appropriate response without a dispute as to the objectionable nature of the objection. If you believe the interrogatory is objectionable and yet you are compelled to respond, provide the response in the "alternative." This means that you should provide the information requested in the interrogatory, but if the interrogatory is objectionable, then provide other means of communication. Take the time to work with the party posing the interrogatory. If they persist in the dispute, make sure that you document the dispute along with your attempts to resolve the dispute without judicial intervention.

Effects of Interrogatories on a Case

The impact of Interrogatories on the litigation process is substantial. The opposing party has to spend the time and money to respond to the form interrogatories. Your clients have to take the time to answer the form interrogatories, which can impact the case in a very negative way.
The impact of not responding to form interrogatories is even more substantial. If the opposing party fails to respond to the form interrogatories, the party may be sanctioned. For example, they may lose their right to produce testimony from any experts that would have evaluated the interrogatories .
In addition to notifying the other side of what their case is, the form interrogatories allow the parties to get discovery into all the issues in the case. It is a good way to shove all the issues into one place and find out what the defendant knows about those issues. If the defendant’s answers are inadequate, they will be subject to a motion to compel the answers they are withholding. In addition, other forms of discovery, like depositions, are a lot easier before you have to depose their client.