Form and Special Interrogatories Are A Useful Tool for Forcing the Other Party to Set Forth Their Contentions and the Evidence They Claim Supports Them In Family Law and Divorce Litigation

There are two types of interrogatories that are useful in family law litigation: Form and special interrogatories. Special interrogatories are crafted to pinpoint questions about a party's contentions (i.e., is an asset alleged to belong to the community or to be separate property?), and are not objectionable because they seek a legal conclusion. They are also great for identifying the existence of assets, like bank accounts in the other person's name or control, and much more and they can be used to establish perjury later where answers turn out to be false or incomplete.

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CALIFORNIA CODE OF CIVIL PROCEDURE

WRITTEN INTERROGATORIES

Propounding Interrogatories

C.C.P. Section 2030.030

(a) A party may propound to another party either or both of the following:

(1) Thirty-five specially prepared interrogatories that are relevant to the subject matter of the pending action.

(2) Any additional number of official form interrogatories as described in Chapter 17 (commencing with Section 2033.710), that are relevant to the subject matter of the pending action.

(b) Except as provided in Section 2030.070, no party shall, as a matter of right, propound to any other party more than 35 specially prepared interrogatories. If the initial set of interrogatories does not exhaust this limit, the balance may be propounded in subsequent sets.

(c) Unless a declaration as described in Section 2030.050 has been made, a party need only respond to the first 35 specially prepared interrogatories served, if that party states an objection to the balance, under Section 2030.240, on the ground that the limit has been exceeded.