Section 3.23 Option of Producing Business Records

• Library: Discovery 2015

If an answer to an interrogatory can be derived or ascertained from a party’s business records, the party may answer the interrogatory by specifying the records from which the answers may be obtained and affording a reasonable opportunity to examine, audit, or inspect the records and make copies, compilations, abstracts, or summaries. Rule 57.01(c)(4). The purpose of this option is to relieve parties from engaging in burdensome or expensive research of their own records to answer interrogatories, and it permits shifting of this burden to the party seeking the information. Advisory Committee Notes (1970 Amendment) to FED. R. CIV. P. 33(c).

The important qualifying factor in Rule 57.01(c)(4)(C) is that the burden of deriving or ascertaining the answers from the records must be substantially...