The new rules of civil procedure in British Columbia will come into effect on July 1, 2010. One of the changes will be to restrict the use of written interrogatories.
Under the old rules, Rule 29 allowed any party to serve questions in written form on another party to the lawsuit. This is a useful tool in matrimonial litigation, especially where you have uncooperative former spouses who refuse to provide documents or answer questions through the usual course of letters to opposing counsel. Under Rule 29, the party asked to answer the interrogatories could object to specific questions, or bring an application to court to strike the interrogatories for example, but generally speaking, asking questions through Interrogatories is an effective means of gathering information and evidence in family law matters.
By submitting questions concerning a party’s financial records and making requests for documents within the interrogatory, the other party has an opportunity to go through his or her records, and review the questions and answers with his or her lawyer, which ensures accuracy of the response, and allows the asking party to rely on the answer as it forms part of the written evidence. These written answers are much more useful and inexpensive to obtain, than setting the matter for hearing and asking the same questions during oral examinations, where the other party often does not know the answers off-the-top of his or her head or will not answer. In written form and guided by counsel, more often than not, answers are provided within the timelines.
Under the new Rule 7-3, a party who wishes to examine another by written interrogatories must first get the other party’s agreement, or they have to apply to court and ask the court to allow the interrogatories.
This change in the Rules is unfortunate, and in my view, will have the opposite effect of what is intended. Instead of reducing the costs of family law litigation, in most cases it will increase the costs, since under the new rules, if the former spouse does not agree to answer interrogatories, you may be able to get a court order allowing interrogatories but it is an extra step, which adds to the expense for the client.