Opinion
No. 7821SC519
Filed 17 April 1979
Appeal and Error 6.9 — order sustaining objections to interrogatories — premature appeal Purported appeal from an order sustaining defendants' objections to seventeen interrogatories directed to defendants is dismissed as premature.
APPEAL by plaintiff from Rousseau, Judge. Order entered 9 March 1978 in Superior Court, FORSYTH County. Heard in the Court of Appeals 6 March 1979.
F. Mickey Andrews for plaintiff appellant.
Womble, Carlyle, Sandridge Rice, by Allan R. Gitter and William C. Raper, for defendant appellees.
Plaintiff seeks to appeal from an order of the trial court sustaining defendants' objections to seventeen interrogatories directed to defendants. Defendants moved to dismiss the appeal as being fragmentary and interlocutory. Plaintiff also petitions for writ of certiorari to review the ruling of the trial court.
Defendants' counsel concede in their brief and oral argument that the trial court expressly stated the order here appealed did not prohibit plaintiff from further proper discovery, without limitation.
The order of Judge Rousseau did not affect a substantial right of the plaintiff. The appeal is interlocutory, fragmentary and premature and should be dismissed. Stanback v. Stanback, 287 N.C. 448, 215 S.E.2d 30 (1975). The petition for certiorari is denied.
We note that by this process plaintiff has delayed further court proceedings in this case by more than a year.
Petition for certiorari denied. Appeal dismissed.
Judges VAUGHN and ERWIN concur.