Discovery Tools, Interrogatories
‘Interrogatories’ is a fancy word for questions, more specifically, written questions that must be answered in writing and under oath. Rule 71. You may only give interrogatories to your opponent, not to third parties. In the formal discovery process, the rules limit the number of interrogatories to 25. Significant subparts of a question are counted separately. As a general rule you would save your limited number of interrogatories to explore information you have uncovered using the other two discovery tools, Requests for Admissions and Requests for Production of Documents. Among the advantages of using interrogatories is that it is a lot cheaper than deposing a witness. If the questions require any research or information gathering, extensions of time over the usual 30 day response period are common. Using interrogatories you can also ask for information that is somewhat more open ended and does not lend itself to simple statements of fact. Explanations of certain actions taken, for instance, or for the application of a specific code section to a particular fact that has been admitted or denied, can better be investigated with a well focused interrogatory than with admissions. You are allowed to ask about anything “reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence.” See Rule 70(b). And since the defendant in your case is the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, you may seek facts that exist as organizational knowledge. That is to say, facts within the knowledge of the Commissioner, his agents, his attorneys, or appearing in IRS records. You must be careful, however, that your questions are not so broad ...
