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8 F.R.D. 328

Moorman v. Simon

U.S. District Court

Decided June 16, 1947

U.S. District Court · decided 1947-06-16

Relies on Hercules Powder Co. v. Rohm & Haas Co. · Canuso v. City of Niagara Falls · F. & M. Skirt Co. v. A. Wimpfheimer & Bro., Inc.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1947-06-16

How this case has been cited

Cited by 4 later decisions — most recently October 1962

1 federal appellate · 1 district · 1 state decisions

20194719501960decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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REEVES, District Judge.

¶1In interrogatories numbered 5, 8 and 15, the plaintiff asks for an opinion on the part of the defendant as to the speed at which he was traveling at the time of the collision. It is the rule announced by numerous authorities that matters of opinion are not appropriate subjects of interrogatories. See Holtzoff on New Federal Procedure and the Courts, p. 90; also Canuso v. City of Niagara Falls, D.C., 4 F.R.D. 362; Hercules Powder Co. v. Rohm & Haas Co., D.C., 3 F.R.D. 328.

¶2Interrogatory number 16 seeks the intention of the defendant as to what he was intending to do at the time of the collision. This, too, would call for an opinion, and, moreover, it is immaterial and irrelevant to the issues tendered by the plaintiff in his complaint.

¶3The same is true with respect to interrogatory number 17, wherein the plaintiff asks of the defendant: “At the time of this collision what was your destination and where had you started from, and what time of day had you started?” It seems clear that the defendant would not be required to answer a question so irrelevant and immaterial.

¶4Interrogatory Number 21 and Number 22 seek the names of witnesses to be called by the defendant. It is discretionary with the court whether a party should be required to disclose the names of his witnesses. F. & M. Skirt Co. v. Wimpfheimer & Bro., D.C., 25 F.Supp. 898. While ordinarily a party may by indirection find out the names of witnesses by interrogatories, yet in this case the plaintiff is just as familiar with the events that transpired at the time, and is in as good position as the defendant to know or find out who the witnesses were. It seems an unnecessary burden to require the defendant in a case of this kind to furnish the names of his witnesses to the plaintiff.

¶5Accordingly, the objections made by the defendant should be sustained, and it will be so ordered.

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