Courts have been ruling on the question for years: Is it proper to ask the same questions in depositions that you just asked (and received answers to) in interrogatories? In this episode Jim Garrity definitively answers the query, and provides practical guidance for you.

This podcast is based on the best-selling 450-page field guide, 10,000 Depositions Later: The Premier Litigation Guide for Superior Deposition Practice, now in its 3d edition. Buy it on Amazon, or just about anywhere else you buy your practice materials.

Cases cited in this episode:

Beijing Choice Electronic Technology Co. Ltd. V. Conte Medical Systems USA, Inc., 2020 WL 1701861 (N.D. Ill. April 8, 2020) (use of interrogatory to ask question similar to one previously asked in deposition not improper; discovery methods are complementary, not alternative or exclusive)

Kainz v. Anheuser-Busch, Inc., 15 F.R.D. 242 (N.D. Ill. 1954) (asking same questions in both interrogatories and depositions not necessarily improper; absent showing that complete answers to the interrogatories are contained in the depositions, this burden is not discharged)

Beasley v. Lang, 2018 WL 2072856 (S.D. Miss. May 2, 2018) (court, in compelling defendants to respond to plaintiff’s interrogatories and document requests, specifically ruled “This order does not prevent Plaintiff from asking any questions during the deposition of EF Properties or Mr. Flechas that are related to, the same, or similar to the interrogatories”)

DiSantis v. Smith of Philadelphia, 1987 WL 28537 (E.D. Penn. 1987) (“. . . the various methods of discovery are intended to be cumulative, not alternative nor exclusive;” but party wishing to object to interrogatory in grounds a prior deposition covered it, movant must show abuse or injustice from it)

Hunt v. McNeil Consumer Healthcare, 2013 WL 12231272 (E.D. La. Jan. 15, 2013) (interrogatory questions asked in interrogatories and in depositions were “semantically distinct,” even though the questions shared many similarities; subtle differences in the way the interrogatories and depositions questions were asked justified finding that plaintiff’s testimony in those formats did not conflict)

Rutledge v. Elliott Health System, 2018 WL 851354 (D. N.H. Feb. 13, 2018) (“To the extent Rutledge faults the defendants for failing to ask her follow up questions on these topics during her deposition, she has not shown that a party waives the right to compel a response to an interrogatory by not including the same question during a deposition”)

Sprayberry v. Portfolio Recovery Associates LLC, 2018 WL 10604345 (D. Oregon Feb. 2, 2018) (court rejected plaintiff’s request that defendant be forbidden to ask depositions questions because, the plaintiff contended, the opposing party could ask the same question in an interrogatory or request for admission or obtain the information from another source; court said that answering deposition questions is “. . . certainly no more burdensome that responding to written discovery requests”)

Lowery v. County of Riley, 2009 WL 648928 (D. Kan. 2009) (party cannot avoid answering interrogatories by demanding opponent ask the desired questions in depositions instead )

Richlin v. Sigma Design West, Ltd., 88 F.R.D. 634 (E.D. Cal. 1980) (patently duplicative interrogatories, served in February after extensive depositionsin December,were oppressive and overly burdensome; there was no hint that new information had come to light, or that the pleadings had changed, such to warrant service of the same questions by interrogatory that had been answered fully in deposition; fact that rules allow multiple types of discovery  is “. . . not a license to engage in ‘repetitious, redundant and tautological’ inquiries…”)