Opinion ID: 1145213
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: motion to compel answers to interrogatories

Text: Plaintiffs served defendants with interrogatories requesting the following information: 1. For each affirmative defense listed in your answer provide the following information: (a) The legal theory together with any cite to statutory, rule or case decision which supports the affirmative defense; (b) Factual information, whether personal or based on information and belief which supports each affirmative defense; Defendants refused to answer the interrogatories primarily on the ground that the interrogatories requested information privileged under the attorney work product doctrine. For the reasons stated below, we hold that the superior court erred in refusing to compel the defendants to answer the second interrogatory. Pursuant to Civil Rule 33(b), interrogatories may relate to any matters which can be inquired into under Civil Rule 26(b). Under Rule 26(b), which is patterned after Federal Rule 26, parties may obtain discovery of any unprivileged matter which is relevant to the subject matter involved in the action. However, in ordering discovery, a court shall protect against disclosure of the mental impressions, conclusions, opinions, or legal theories of an attorney or any other representative of a party concerning the litigation. Alaska R.Civ.P. 26(b)[3]. Thus, a party is not required to state what evidence will be relevant, set out his conception of the law as applied to the particular facts, indicate on what legal principles he will rely, or reveal his conception of the strong and weak points of his case. See generally 8 C. Wright & A. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure § 2167, at 497-98 (1970); see also Ford v. Philips Electronics Instruments Co., 82 F.R.D. 359, 360 (E.D.Pa. 1979). We believe that plaintiffs' first interrogatory, requiring defendants to state the legal theory along with citations to statutes and cases which support their affirmative defenses, clearly requested information protected under the work product doctrine. Thus, the superior court properly refused to compel defendants to answer the first interrogatory. However, the protection afforded by the work product doctrine as stated in Rule 26(b) must be read in harmony with Rule 33(b), which states that [a]n 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... . Alaska R.Civ.P. 33(b). Since under Civil Rule 8 the pleadings are called upon only to give notice generally of the issues involved in the case, permitting the discovery of factually oriented opinions and contentions serves to further the purposes of discovery, which are to narrow the issues, obtain evidence for use at trial, and secure information about where and how such evidence can be obtained. See Advisory Committee Notes, 48 F.R.D. 487, 524 (1969); see also 8 C. Wright & A. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure § 2001, at 15 (1970). An example of a discoverable factually oriented opinion or contention is found in Hartsfield v. Gulf Oil Corp., 29 F.R.D. 163 (E.D.Pa. 1962). The defendant in Hartsfield submitted interrogatories requiring the plaintiff to state in detail the facts upon which his claim of negligence was founded. The court rejected the plaintiffs' contention that the interrogatories were improper as seeking the work product of counsel, and stated the following: Opinions and conclusions are inherent in any specification of the factual basis of a claim of negligence. The allegation of negligence itself is the statement of a conclusion, and since negligence may be pleaded broadly, a statement of the facts upon which the conclusion is based can hardly be forbidden as the expression of conclusions. Nor is it necessarily improper to require conclusions or opinions. The Rules themselves do not preclude it, and to establish such a prohibitory principle would enthrone theoretical considerations of logical symmetry above the practical requirements of everyday litigation. Any denial of interrogatories which are calculated to lead to evidence or to narrow the issues would thwart the purpose of the Rules. Hartsfield, 29 F.R.D. at 164-65 (citation omitted). The principle enunciated in Hartsfield has been followed by all of the recent cases. See generally 8 C. Wright and A. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure § 2167, at 502-04 (1970). Plaintiffs' second interrogatory required the defendants to provide factual information supporting each affirmative defense. Although a specification of facts necessarily requires a party to make opinions and draw conclusions, such opinions and conclusions are factually oriented within the meaning of Civil Rule 33(b), and are therefore not privileged under the work product rule. Accordingly, the superior court's order denying plaintiffs' motion to compel answers to their second interrogatory is reversed.