Facts
- A relator filed a False Claims Act action alleging that defendants defrauded the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) by concealing doping and misrepresenting compliance with sponsorship terms; the United States later intervened.
- During discovery, the United States served interrogatories seeking the factual basis and quantified value for a defendant’s contention that USPS financially benefited from the sponsorship.
- The interrogatories asked the defendant to identify and value: (1) earned media/ad-equivalency, (2) improved employee morale, (3) sponsorship-attributed sales (with dates, amounts, and customers), and (4) improved brand perception (facts and value).
- The defendant responded largely by citing expert reports, “all documents cited and referenced” in those reports, and a broad attachment listing hundreds of deposition transcripts and other produced documents.
- The United States moved to compel complete responses, arguing the document citations were overbroad and an improper use of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 33(d).
Issues
- Whether Rule 33(d) permits a party to answer contention interrogatories seeking valuation and factual bases by broadly directing the interrogating party to extensive document collections and expert materials.
- Whether the defendant “specified” the records with sufficient detail under Rule 33(d) to allow the United States to locate the responsive information as readily as the defendant.
- Whether the burden of deriving the answers from the referenced materials was “substantially the same” for both sides, as Rule 33(d) requires.
Decision
- The court granted the motion to compel in substantial part and found the defendant’s responses to the interrogatories inadequate.
- The court rejected the defendant’s attempt to satisfy the interrogatories through sweeping Rule 33(d) references to expert reports and voluminous discovery materials.
- The court ordered supplemental, narrative interrogatory answers stating the defendant’s quantifications, supporting facts, and explanatory bases for the claimed USPS benefits.
Legal Principles
- Contention interrogatories under Rule 33(a)(2) may require a party to state its position and disclose the facts and calculations supporting that position.
- Rule 33(d) does not excuse a party from providing meaningful answers when interrogatories seek the party’s own contentions, valuations, and explanatory reasoning rather than purely objective information extractable from records.
- To rely on Rule 33(d), the responding party must identify the specific records to be reviewed with enough detail for the interrogating party to locate the information as readily as the responding party.
- Broad “document dump” references—such as large lists of depositions and produced documents or incorporation of “all documents cited” by an expert—generally fail Rule 33(d)’s specificity requirement.
- Rule 33(d) is improper where the burden of extracting the answer from the referenced materials is not substantially the same for both parties, particularly when the responding party has already organized the record to support its theory.
Conclusion
The court required the defendant to provide complete, narrative interrogatory answers quantifying and explaining the alleged sponsorship benefits to USPS, holding that Rule 33(d) cannot be used to avoid articulating core contentions through broad, unspecific references to voluminous discovery and expert materials.