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Discovery – Drafting Formal Discovery Requests

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Discovery is generally comprised of Interrogatories (sometimes abbreviated at  Interr or Rogs), Request for production of Documents (sometimes abbreviated as RPD or RFPD), and then sometimes, but not has frequently, Request for Admissions (sometimes abbreviated as RFA).

  • Interrogatories: Written questions about things that are relevant to the case that must be answered by the other party in writing and under oath. Interrogatories are done in a particular format and each party can serve another party with up to 50 interrogatories. The answers to interrogatories can be used at trial. See Rule 33 of the MN Rules of Civil Procedure for more information.
  • Request for Production of Documents: A written request asking the other party to produce particular documents or items, and to allow the requesting party to inspect and copy, test, or sample the document, item, or electronically stored information. See Rule 34 of the MN Rules of Civil Procedure for more information.
  • Request for Admissions: A written request asking another party to admit or deny certain facts about the case. Statements that are not denied or objected to within 30 days are generally considered to be admitted (to be true), although there are some exceptions. Responses to these written requests can be used at trial. See Rule 36 of the MN Rules of Civil Procedure for more information.

Always use the MyCase templates for both Interrogatories and RPD. These templates contain almost every interrogatory that you may want to ask and every request for production of document you may want to make. It’s important to know the details of the case so you can know what is applicable to the case. Generally speaking, you will delete a lot of the questions/requests as they aren’t applicable.

The limit for number of interrogatories that can be asked is 50 per case. If someone wanted to be difficult, they could argue each subpart of a question was its own question. Keep this in mind.

When determining what RPDs we want to include, ensure you review the intake and get additional information from both the attorney and client regarding any specific requests. Also ensure you know the dates of documents we want to request. Generally we want the last couple years of documents, but if there are some non-marital accounts, then we are likely going to request documents from the date of marriage. Again, refer to the intake and talk to the attorney for specifics.

Interrogatories, RPDs, and RFA must be served upon OPA or OPP. Once served upon a party, that party has 30 days to respond.

 

See articles on discovery deficiencies for what to do if OPA/OPP doesn’t respond or doesn’t respond entirely.

See article on how to name financial documents that often come in as part of discovery

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