Neb. Sup. Ct. R. 6-333

As amended through November 11, 2024

Section 6-333 - [Effective 1/1/2025] Interrogatories to parties

(a) In General.

(1) Number. Unless otherwise stipulated or ordered by the court, a party may serve on any other party no more than 50 written interrogatories, including all discrete subparts. The court may grant leave to serve additional interrogatories for good cause shown.

(2) Scope. An interrogatory may relate to any matter that may be inquired into under Rule 26(b). An interrogatory is not objectionable merely because it asks for an opinion or contention that relates to factor the application of law to fact, but the court may order that the interrogatory need not be answered until designated discovery is complete or some other time.

(3) Time; Editable Format. Interrogatories may be served on the plaintiff after commencement of the action and on any other party with or after service of the summons on that party. Upon demand, the party served with the interrogatories must be given an electronic copy of the interrogatories in a readily editable format.

(b) Answers and Objections.

(1) Responding Party. The interrogatories must be answered:

(A) by the party to whom they are directed; or

(B) if that party is a public or private corporation, a partnership, an association, a governmental agency, or other entity, by any officer or agent, who must furnish the information available to the party.

(2) Time to Respond. The responding party must serve its answers and any objections within 30 days after being served with the interrogatories, except that a defending party may serve its answers and objections within 45 days after being served with the summons or 30 days after being served with the interrogatories, whichever is longer. A shorter or longer time may be stipulated to under Rule 29 or be ordered by the court.

(3) Answering Each Interrogatory. Each interrogatory must, to the extent it is not objected to, be answered separately and fully in writing under oath.

(4) Objections. If a party objects to an interrogatory, the party must state the grounds for the objection and must also explain with specificity why the interrogatory is objectionable on those grounds. Any ground not stated in a timely objection is waived unless the court, for good cause, excuses the failure.

(5) Form of Answer or Objection. The answering or objecting party must reproduce each interrogatory and then state the party's answer or objection to the interrogatory.

(6) Signature. The person who makes the answers must sign them, and the attorney who objects must sign any objections.

(c) Use. An answer to an interrogatory may be used to the extent allowed by the Nebraska Evidence Rules.

(d) Option to Produce Business Records. If the answer to an interrogatory may be determined by examining, auditing, compiling, abstracting, or summarizing a party's business records (including electronically stored information), and if the burden of deriving or ascertaining the answer will be substantially the same for either party, the responding party may answer by:

(1) specifying the records that must be reviewed, in sufficient detail to enable the interrogating party to locate and identify them as readily as the responding party could; and

(2) giving the interrogating party a reasonable opportunity to examine and audit the records and to make copies, compilations, abstracts, or summaries.

Neb. Sup. Ct. R. 6-333

Rule 33(c) amended June 4, 2008, effective 6/18/2008. Renumbered and codified as § 6-333, effective 7/18/2008; amended November 13, 2024, effective 1/1/2025.

COMMENTS TO § 6-333

[1] Although interrogatories can be a helpful discovery method, they can also be abused. The rule therefore imposes a numerical limit on interrogatories. A party may not serve more than 50 interrogatories, including all discrete subparts, on another party unless the court orders or the parties stipulate otherwise. The rule does not specify how to count interrogatories. In applying the numerical limit imposed by Rule 33 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, most federal courts have said that an interrogatory with subparts should be counted as one interrogatory if the "subparts are logically or factually subsumed within and necessarily related to the primary question." Erfindergemeinschaft Uropep GbR v. Eli Lilly and Company, 315 F.R.D. 191, 196 (E.D. Tex. 2016).

[2] The rule requires a party responding to an interrogatory to reproduce the interrogatory and then state its answer or objection. That is easier to do if the party is served with the interrogatories in a readily editable electronic format such as Word or WordPerfect. But parties are sometimes served with interrogatories in a paper format or in a non-readily editable electronic format such PDF. Subpart (a)(3) was added in 2024 to address the situation. The subpart requires the serving party to provide the responding party with an electronic copy of the interrogatories in a readily editable format if the responding party asks for such a copy.

[3] Although the 2024 Amendments made significant stylistic changes to the rule, they made very few substantive changes. One of the substantive changes was the addition of subpart (b)(4). The subpart requires an objecting party to state the grounds for its objection and to explain why the interrogatory is objectionable on those grounds. The purpose of the requirement is to eliminate what are often called "boilerplate objections" - in other words, objections that state objections in a conclusory way (for example, "burdensome, oppressive, and irrelevant") without explaining the specific reasons for the objection. Requiring parties to state the specific reasons for the objection may discourage the parties from making baseless objections and may also help them resolve discovery disputes informally by identifying the specific problems that the objecting party has with the interrogatory.

[4] Subpart (b)(4) also provides that an objection is waived if the party fails to make the objection in a timely manner. Treating such a failure as a waiver, however, may sometimes be unduly harsh. The rule therefore gives the court the discretion to excuse the failure if there is good cause for doing so.