Discovery disputes are often fought at the margins, and the question for any attorney responding to written interrogatories is how much information is necessary to be responsive. In an order Tuesday, the Business Court disapproved of one common tactic: the generalized Rule 33(c) answer.
In case you haven’t answered interrogatories in a while, recall that Rule 33(c) allows a responding party to point the propounding party to responsive business documents rather than the responding party poring over those documents itself to create a written answer:
(c) Option to produce business records. – Where the answer to an interrogatory may be derived or ascertained from the business records of the party upon whom the interrogatory has been served or from an examination, audit or inspection of such business records, or from a compilation, abstract or summary based thereon, and the burden of deriving or ascertaining the answer is substantially the same for the party serving the interrogatory as for the party served, it is a sufficient answer to such interrogatory to specify the records from which the answer may be derived or ascertained and to afford to the party serving the interrogatory reasonable opportunity to examine, audit or inspect such records and to make copies, compilations, abstracts or summaries.
In Phillips & Jordan, Inc. v. Bostic,
the parties already had been through a full round of briefing and a status conference on the plaintiff’s motion to compel. Plaintiff asserted that the Defendants’ supplemental responses still weren’t enough. To the Court’s frustration, Plaintiff did not identify specific responses that allegedly remained deficient, but the Court decided to address the issue anyway in order "to avoid further motions practice in a case where counsel cannot agree on the time of day. . . ."
Judge Diaz ruled that the Defendants could not use Rule 33(c) "to foist upon Plaintiff the obligation to comb through the records for materials responsive to the Discovery Requests." The volume of documents at issue was an important factor for the Court: over 200 bankers’ boxes of paper documents in a warehouse, plus electronic records. Also important was that "the records are in total disarray" (which the Court determined based on photographs submitted by the Plaintiff of the inside of the warehouse where the records were stored).
The Court accordingly held that the Defendants were not entitled to use Rule 33(c) because "the burden to derive or ascertain the relevant information from the records is not the same for Plaintiff as for the . . . Defendants." As a result, the Defendants were ordered to cull through their records to identify responsive documents and to "produce documents in a manner such that Plaintiff (and, if necessary, the Court) can readily identify the set of documents that are responsive to each interrogatory or request for production." (emphasis in original). The Court also required each Defendant to file an affidavit within 10 days of production specifically setting forth how that Defendant complied with the Court’s order.
This order is not the death knell for Rule 33(c), which remains a valid response to interrogatories. However, the Business Court appears willing to scrutinize the use of Rule 33(c) and the surrounding circumstances. Based on this order, Business Court practitioners wanting to avoid being on the wrong end of a motion to compel might consider at least two responses: (1) identify specific documents that the propounding party needs to review to determine the answer and (2) narrow the universe of those documents to make sure that the burden on the propounding party truly is equal to the burden on the responding party. Practically, it may be easier just to answer the interrogatory with the information requested.