Opinion
00-CV-0407E(F)
December 6, 2001
MEMORANDUM and ORDER
Plaintiffs commenced this action May 12, 2000 alleging violations of Title II of the Americans With Disabilities Act ( 42 U.S.C. § 12131 et seq.) and section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 ( 29 U.S.C. § 794) because of defendants' failure to afford them reasonable accommodations and/or accessibility to defendants' programs, services, activities and/or facilities to which they are entitled. Plaintiffs also allege violations of 42 U.S.C. § 1983 based upon unlawful acts and omissions of defendants under color of state law based on defendants' depriving them of their rights, privileges and immunities secured by the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Presently before this Court is a motion by plaintiffs to exceed the number of interrogatories allowed under Rule 33 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure ("FRCvP"). For the reasons which follow, such motion is granted.
Plaintiffs' Complaint alleges that defendant's Campus has architectural barriers which do not comply with federal law, including inaccessible classrooms, buildings, restrooms, parking spaces, paths of travel, curbcuts and student health center. Plaintiffs also allege a lack of proper snow removal policies and a lack of appropriate signage for accessible entrances, restrooms and parking. On January 5, 2001 plaintiffs' counsel served upon defendants their Request for Admissions, Request for Answers to Interrogatories and Request for Production of Documents. Plaintiffs' counsel acknowledged that the number of interrogatories exceeded the twenty-five allowed by FRCvP 33 and asked defendants to either stipulate to respond fully or to notify plaintiffs' counsel promptly if defendants intended to raise an objection before the undersigned. After a number of correspondences between the parties, defendants answered what they believed to be the first twenty-five questions and left the remainder unanswered. This motion followed.
Under FRCvP 33 "any party may serve upon any other party written interrogatories, not exceeding 25 in number including all discrete subparts, to be answered by the party served * * *." If a party wishes to serve more than 25 interrogatories, "[l]eave to serve additional interrogatories shall be granted to the extent consistent with the principles of Rule 26(b)(2)." Here plaintiffs served defendant with thirty interrogatories most of which consist of three or four subparts. Defendants considered such to constitute eighty-four separate interrogatories and, therefore, when they answered what they considered to be the first twenty-five interrogatories, they actually only answered what plaintiffs had designated as the first nine. Therefore, this Court must not only decide whether or not the subparts of the first interrogatories are discrete, but also whether to allow plaintiffs to increase the number of interrogatories to thirty.2
A typical interrogatory reads as follows:
"4. Pursuant to Defendant William Griener's response to ¶ 4 of Plaintiff's First Request for Admissions, please answer the following Interrogatories and produce the following documents:
(a) State the facts that the defendant contends supports his response.
(b) Produce a copy, however stored, of each document that the defendant contends supports his response or, if no such documents exist, so state.
(c) Produce a copy of any updates made within the past ten years to the documents produced in response to subparagraph (b), or if no such updates exist, so state.
(d) With respect to each document produced in response to subparagraphs (b) and (c), describe the information in the document the defendant contends supports his response, and explain why such information supports his response."
The undersigned is convinced that every subpart of the submitted interrogatories is not a discrete subpart. As shown in the sample given supra, the subparts simply ask the person answering the interrogatory to elaborate on his response to an earlier part thereof and many of the subparts may not be applicable. Therefore, this Court reads plaintiffs' January 5, 2001 Request for Answers to Interrogatories to contain thirty questions, not eight-four as defendants contend. This Court must now decide whether to allow plaintiffs to increase the number of interrogatories from twenty-five to thirty. In making this decision, the undersigned is guided by FRCvP 26(b)(2) which seeks to limit discovery to that which is proportional to the needs of the case. Defendants argue that plaintiffs' case is not that complex and any discovery other than that provided for in FRCvP 26(b)(2) would be disproportional. This Court does not agree. Plaintiffs' complaint lists a number of different architectural features of defendants' campus which they contend do not comply with federal law.
Although the information pertaining to any one of these features might not be complex, the number of features mentioned by plaintiffs suggests that additional interrogatories would be consistent with the purposes behind discovery. In addition, the undersigned notes that plaintiffs are only asking for an additional five interrogatories which is entirely proportional to the needs of their case. Therefore, this Court will grant plaintiffs' request and order that defendant answer each interrogatory listed in plaintiffs' January 5, 2001 request.
Accordingly, it is hereby ORDERED that plaintiffs' motion to exceed twenty-five interrogatories is granted and that defendants are ordered to answer each interrogatory in plaintiffs' January 5, 2001 request.