(A) Availability; Procedure for Service; Limits.(1) A party may serve on another party written interrogatories to be answered by the party served or, if the party served is a public or private corporation, partnership, association, or governmental agency, by an officer or agent. Subject to MCR 2.302(B), iInterrogatories may, without leave of court, be served:
(a) on the plaintiff after commencement of the action;(b) on a defendant with or after the service of the summons and complaint on that defendant.(2) Each separately represented party may serve no more than twenty interrogatories upon each party. A discrete subpart of an interrogatory counts as a separate interrogatory.(B) Answers and Objections.(1) Each interrogatory must be answered separately and fully in writing under oath. The answers must include such information as is available to the party served or that the party could obtain from his or her employees, agents, representatives, sureties, or indemnitors. If the answering party objects to an interrogatory, the reasons for the objection must be stated in lieu of an answer.(2) The answering party shall repeat each interrogatory or subquestion immediately before the answer to it.(3) The answers must be signed by the person making them and the objections signed by the attorney or an unrepresented party making them.(4) The party on whom the interrogatories are served must serve the answers and objections, if any, on all other parties within 28 days after the interrogatories are served, except that a defendant may serve answers within 42 days after being served with the summons and complaint. The court may allow a longer or shorter time and, for good cause shown, may excuse service on parties other than the party who served the interrogatories.(C) Motion to Compel Answers. The party submitting the interrogatories may move for an order under MCR 2.313(A) with respect to an objection to or other failure to answer an interrogatory. If the motion is based on the failure to serve answers, proof of service of the interrogatories must be filed with the motion. The motion must state that the movant has in good faith conferred or attempted to confer with the party not making the disclosure in an effort to secure the disclosure without court action.(D) Scope; Use at Trial.(1) An interrogatory may relate to matters that can be inquired into under MCR 2.302(B).(2) An interrogatory otherwise proper is not necessarily objectionable merely because an answer to the interrogatory involves an opinion or contention that relates to fact or the application of law to fact, but the court may order that an interrogatory need not be answered until after designated discovery has been completed or until a pretrial conference or other later time.(3) The answer to an interrogatory may be used to the extent permitted by the rules of evidence.(E) Option to Produce Business Records. Where the answer to an interrogatory may be derived from
(1) the business records of the party on whom the interrogatory has been served,(2) an examination, audit, or inspection of business records, or(3) a compilation, abstract, or summary based on such records, and the burden of deriving the answer is substantially the same for the party serving the interrogatory as for the party served, it is a sufficient answer to the interrogatory to specify the records from which the answer may be derived and to afford to the party serving the interrogatory reasonable opportunity to examine, audit, or inspect the records and to make copies, compilations, abstracts, or summaries. A specification shall be in sufficient detail to permit the interrogating party to identify, as readily as can the party served, the records from which the answer may be derived.
