Rule 33. Interrogatories to parties. - North Carolina Statutes

Rule 33. Interrogatories toparties.

(a)        Availability;procedures for use. – Any party may serve upon any other party writteninterrogatories to be answered by the party served or, if the party served is apublic or private corporation or a partnership or association or governmentalagency, by any officer or agent, who shall furnish such information as isavailable to the party. Interrogatories may, without leave of court, be servedupon the plaintiff after commencement of the action and upon any other partywith or after service of the summons and complaint upon that party.

A party may direct no morethan 50 interrogatories, in one or more sets, to any other party, except uponleave granted by the Court for good cause shown or by agreement of the otherparty.  Interrogatory parts and subparts shall be counted as separateinterrogatories for purposes of this rule.

There shall be sufficientspace following each interrogatory in which the respondent may state theresponse. The respondent shall: (1) state the response in the space provided,using additional pages if necessary; or (2) restate the interrogatory to befollowed by the response.

Each interrogatory shall beanswered separately and fully in writing under oath, unless it is objected to,in which event the reasons for objection shall be stated in lieu of an answer.An objection to an interrogatory shall be made by stating the objection and thereason therefor either in the space following the interrogatory or followingthe restated interrogatory. The answers are to be signed by the person makingthem, and the objections signed by the attorney making them. The party uponwhom the interrogatories have been served shall serve a copy of the answers,and objections if any, within 30 days after the service of the interrogatories,except that a defendant may serve answers or objections within 45 days afterservice of the summons and complaint upon the defendant. The court may allow ashorter or longer time. The party submitting the interrogatories may move foran order under Rule 37(a) with respect to any objection to or other failure toanswer an interrogatory.

(b)        Scope; use attrial. – Interrogatories may relate to any matters which can be inquired intounder Rule 26(b), and the answers may be used to the extent permitted by therules of evidence.

An interrogatory otherwiseproper is not necessarily objectionable  merely because an answer to theinterrogatory involves an opinion or contention that relates to fact or theapplication of law to fact, but the court may order that such an interrogatoryneed not be answered until after designated discovery has been completed oruntil a pretrial conference or other later time.

(c)        Option to producebusiness records. – Where the answer to an interrogatory may be derived orascertained from the business records of the party upon whom the interrogatoryhas been served or from an examination, audit or inspection of such businessrecords, or from a compilation, abstract or summary based thereon, and theburden of deriving or ascertaining the answer is substantially the same for theparty serving the interrogatory as for the party served, it is a sufficientanswer to such interrogatory to specify the records from which the answer maybe derived or ascertained and to afford to the party serving the interrogatoryreasonable opportunity to examine, audit or inspect such records and to makecopies, compilations, abstracts or summaries. (1967, c. 954, s. 1; 1971, c.1156, s. 4.5; 1975, c. 99; c. 762, s. 2; 1987, c. 73, c. 613, s. 1.)