## Facts

- O’Brien was a member of Local 613 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW).
- A union member charged O’Brien with violating the IBEW constitution by distributing literature characterized as “antiunion” or detrimental to the union.
- Local 613’s executive board held a hearing, found O’Brien guilty, and imposed a $2,725 fine and a temporary suspension from local union activities.
- O’Brien filed a federal civil action alleging the union discipline violated his speech rights under Title I of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA).
- In discovery, O’Brien served interrogatories seeking: (1) the specific statements forming the basis of the union charges and why they violated the constitution; (2) how the statements violated O’Brien’s responsibilities to the union or interfered with union obligations; and (3) how the cited constitutional provisions could withstand application of the LMRDA.
- The union refused to answer, objecting that the interrogatories improperly sought legal conclusions.
- O’Brien moved to compel answers under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

## Issues

1. Whether Rule 33 permits interrogatories requiring a party to state contentions applying law to the facts of the dispute.
2. Whether an interrogatory asking a party to justify, in general legal terms, the validity of internal rules under federal law is an improper request for a purely legal conclusion.
3. Whether the union had to answer each of the three disputed interrogatories.

## Decision

- The court granted the motion to compel in part and denied it in part.
- The court ordered the union to answer Interrogatories 1 and 2 because they sought identification of the statements at issue and an explanation of how the union applied its rules to those facts.
- The court held Interrogatory 3 improper because it sought a purely legal conclusion on the validity of union constitutional provisions under the LMRDA, rather than the application of law to specific facts.

## Legal Principles

- Rule 33 allows “contention” interrogatories that require a party to state its position on how law applies to the particular facts in dispute.
- Interrogatories may properly seek the factual basis for charges and the opposing party’s explanation of its factual contentions.
- Interrogatories are improper when they seek abstract legal opinions or generalized legal conclusions detached from the case’s factual record.
- Discovery devices are intended to clarify and narrow disputed issues for trial, not to compel a party to provide a standalone legal memorandum on pure questions of law.

## Conclusion

The court enforced Rule 33’s allowance for interrogatories applying law to the case’s facts by compelling answers identifying the speech underlying union discipline and the union’s fact-based rationale, while refusing to require an answer that demanded an abstract legal defense of the union constitution under the LMRDA.


O’Brien v. Int’l Bhd. of Elec. Workers, 443 F. Supp. 1182 (N.D. Ga. 1977)