INTERROGATORIES & REQUEST FOR ADMISSIONS - DIVORCE - CALIFORNIA - VIDEO #57 (2021)

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This is the seventh video in an 11 part series of tutorial videos on how to handle a contested divorce case in California. In this video, we explain about how to use Interrogatories and Request for Admissions to prepare for settlement or trial.
 “Discovery” refers to gathering information and documents from your spouse or from third parties so you can prepare for trial or prepare to negotiate a settlement. There is “informal discovery” and “formal discovery”.

Informal discovery is where both parties cooperate with one another by voluntarily providing whatever information or documents the other party requests. Formal discovery is when your spouse will not voluntarily produce the information or documents you want, so you have to send them or a third party a legal document to force them to provide the information and documents.

Formal discovery is time consuming to draft, but it is a lot more time consuming to respond to. Formal discovery can be incredibly expensive if lawyers get involved because it is so time consuming. I highly recommend that both parties cooperate with each other by freely exchanging information and documents so you can both avoid the time, expense, and aggravation of formal discovery.

Interrogatories are written questions your spouse must answer under oath. There are two types of interrogatories: 1) Form Interrogatories; and 2) Special Interrogatories.

The Judicial Council puts out a set of Form Interrogatories for family law cases. The form is FL-145. You can find the FL-145 form interrogatories in our Court Forms Database. The FL-145 consists of 21 questions that you can compel your spouse to answer. Fill out the caption on page 1 and, on page 2, check the boxes for whichever questions you want your spouse to answer. You can check all the boxes if you want or just some of the boxes.

Special Interrogatories are questions you draft yourself and then submit to your spouse to answer under oath. You may want your spouse to answer particular questions that do not appear on the Form Interrogatories. If you want to send your spouse Special Interrogatories, you will need to draft a “Special Interrogatory” pleading. The Special Interrogatories must be typed on 28-line pleading paper, which is a type of paper that lawyers use.

Yes. Special Interrogatories are not permitted to have subparts. This means your questions may not have multiple parts such as subparts a, b, c, etc. Each special interrogatory has to be a single question. Special Interrogatories may not include questions that are compound, conjunctive or disjunctive questions. This means you can’t have questions that ask for more than one piece of information by using words such as “and” (which is a conjunctive) or the word “or” which is a disjunctive. Make your Special Interrogatories clear and unambiguous. If the question is unclear or ambiguous, it will be objected to by your spouse. The basic rule is to keep each special interrogatory question simple. If you keep each special interrogatory questions simple, you should be O.K.

“Request For Admissions” can be used to compel your spouse to admit the genuineness of a specific document that you want to use at trial or to admit the truth of specific facts. If your spouse admits that certain facts are true in response to a Request For Admissions, you don’t have to prove those facts at trial. If your spouse admits in a response to a Request For Admissions that a particular document is genuine, then you do not need to prove the authenticity of that document at trial.

There is a Judicial Council “Request For Admission” form, which is DISC-020, but it is not much more than a cover sheet. If you use the DISC-020, you will have to draft the set of facts you want admitted and list those facts on “Attachment 1”. You can also attach to the DISC-020 whatever documents you want your spouse to admit are genuine.

You are limited to 35 requests for admissions. It is not 35 admissions of facts plus another 35 admissions regarding whether or not certain documents are genuine. It’s a total of 35. So, if you ask your spouse to admit 20 different facts, you can then only ask your spouse to make 15 admissions regarding the genuineness of documents.

Видео INTERROGATORIES & REQUEST FOR ADMISSIONS - DIVORCE - CALIFORNIA - VIDEO #57 (2021) канала Free Divorce