Bench-Bar Survey Interrogatories also relate to civility. And 82 percent stated that there should be a mandated limit on the number of interrogatories. Judge John Shabaz notes that rules already exist to control discovery and interrogatories abuses in federal courts. The federal rules stipulate that each side may conduct no more than 10 depositions in a case and can issue no more than 25 questions in one interrogatory, unless approved by the court. But although you can limit the number of depositions, you still have to look at the time involved.
Depositions can go on for days and days, as they sometimes do.
To address that problem, the federal system is considering a proposed rule to limit a deposition to no more than seven hours. The rules that already exist have helped, Shabaz believes. The time of trials has been significantly reduced. And I think the rules are such that they give the authority to resolve matters in a more expeditious way. Currently, Wisconsin has no mandatory counterclaims statute.