Georgia law lets you serve up to 50 interrogatories on any single opposing party without asking the court for permission, and that limit includes every subpart. The cap comes from O.C.G.A. 9-11-33, and it applies per opponent, not per case, so in a multi-defendant lawsuit the number of questions you can put in the mail grows with the number of parties on the other side.1Justia. Georgia Code 9-11-33 – Interrogatories to Parties
Subparts Count Against the 50
This is where the rule bites. A question that asks the other side to “identify each witness to the accident and state their name, address, telephone number, employer, and relationship to any party” is not one interrogatory. It is five. Each lettered or logical sub-question counts toward the cap.1Justia. Georgia Code 9-11-33 – Interrogatories to Parties
The practical consequence is that drafting matters more than you might think. Lawyers who stack subparts to look efficient on paper burn through their 50 fast and end up unable to ask the questions that actually matter later in the case. Tight, well-scoped questions get more useful information per interrogatory and leave room to follow up as the facts develop.
Asking the Court for More
If 50 is not enough, you can file a motion for leave to serve additional interrogatories. The statute requires you to show either that the case is complex enough to justify going beyond the default or that you would face undue hardship without the extra questions.1Justia. Georgia Code 9-11-33 – Interrogatories to Parties
Multi-party disputes, cases with extensive document trails, and matters involving complicated financial or technical issues are the ones where courts tend to be receptive. A generic request that just says “the case is complex” without concrete reasons usually gets denied. If you want more questions, be ready to explain exactly which subjects you cannot cover inside the 50 and why.
How Georgia Compares to Federal Court
If you have litigated in federal court, 50 may sound high. It is. The default under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 33 is 25 interrogatories per party, subparts included.2Legal Information Institute. Rule 33 – Interrogatories to Parties Georgia state court practice gives you twice the room to work with before you have to go to the judge.
That difference changes strategy. In a Georgia case you can afford to cover more ground in a single set of interrogatories, including background topics you might skip in federal court to conserve questions. You still cannot waste them, but the ceiling is high enough that most ordinary cases will not hit it.
The 50 Is Per Opposing Party
The cap runs against each opponent separately. If you sue two defendants, you can serve 50 interrogatories on each of them. If you are the defendant and there are two plaintiffs, the same math works the other way. This is why complex cases with several parties on each side can generate a very large total number of interrogatories even without anyone asking the court for leave.
It also means the 50 is not a shared pool among your co-parties. Each party in the case has its own 50-question allowance to use against each opponent.
When You Can Start Serving Them
You can serve interrogatories on the plaintiff at any time after the lawsuit is filed. For any other party, you can serve interrogatories along with the summons and complaint or at any point after that.1Justia. Georgia Code 9-11-33 – Interrogatories to Parties There is no waiting period and no need to get the court’s permission before beginning discovery.
What the Other Side Owes You Back
The 50-question ceiling only matters if the answers come in. Under O.C.G.A. 9-11-33, the responding party has 30 days from service to answer in writing and under oath. A defendant served with interrogatories alongside the summons and complaint gets 45 days instead. Either deadline can be shortened or extended by the court.1Justia. Georgia Code 9-11-33 – Interrogatories to Parties
Each question has to be answered separately and fully. The person providing the answers signs them; an attorney signs any objections. When the opponent is a corporation, partnership, association, or government agency, an officer or agent answers on its behalf and must furnish the information available to the whole organization, not just what they personally know.1Justia. Georgia Code 9-11-33 – Interrogatories to Parties
What You Can Ask About
Interrogatory scope is governed by O.C.G.A. 9-11-26(b). You can ask about any matter relevant to the subject of the lawsuit that is not protected by privilege, including the facts behind the other side’s claims or defenses, the location of documents and physical evidence, the identity of people with knowledge of the dispute, and insurance coverage that could pay a judgment.3Justia. Georgia Code 9-11-26 – General Provisions Governing Discovery
The standard is broader than trial admissibility. A question is fair game as long as the answer appears reasonably calculated to lead to admissible evidence.3Justia. Georgia Code 9-11-26 – General Provisions Governing Discovery The hard limits are attorney-client communications, work product prepared for litigation, and other recognized privileges, which cannot be reached through interrogatories.
Opinion and contention interrogatories, which ask the other side to apply law to fact, are permitted. A court can defer answers to those until later in discovery, but they are not objectionable just because they call for a legal conclusion.1Justia. Georgia Code 9-11-33 – Interrogatories to Parties
Making Your 50 Count
Two provisions in the statute shape how useful your interrogatories really are.
First, the business-records option. When an answer can be derived from the responding party’s business records, and the burden of extracting it is roughly the same for either side, the responding party can point you to the specific records instead of writing a narrative answer. They must identify which records contain the answer and give you a reasonable opportunity to examine, copy, and audit them.1Justia. Georgia Code 9-11-33 – Interrogatories to Parties Phrasing questions in a way that genuinely requires narrative analysis, rather than pure data extraction, reduces the risk that your opponent uses this provision to hand you a stack of raw records.
Second, objections. A responding party can object instead of answering, but the objection has to state specific reasons.1Justia. Georgia Code 9-11-33 – Interrogatories to Parties Overbroad or vague questions invite blanket objections that can tie up a question you spent against your 50. Precise drafting, with a clear subject matter and a defined time frame, makes objections harder to sustain and keeps your limited questions productive.