Legal Question in Consumer Law in California

Re: being sued they served a request for admission and form interrogatories

I suggest you retain legal counsel right away. If you not do respond to Request for Admission under penalty of perjury within the statutory time period, the opposing attorney can move for an order deeming the matters admitted and that would binding on your for the rest of the litigation.

RFAs are usually easy to respond to. The response might be an objection, an admissional, a denial or a partial admission or denial. If you were served with interrogatories demanding an explanation of any denial, you need to be very careful in responding to the interrogatories. It is not the type issue than be easily addressed in this type of forum.

Repeated failure to respond to discovery can also result in the dismissal of your claims or the striking of your answer or entry of your default.

Re: being sued they served a request for admission and form interrogatories

Refer to California Code of Civil Procedure sections 2016 to 2034 generally for the specifics of responding to discovery. Specifically, section 2030 relates to responding to interrogatories and 2033 relates to requsts for admission. You can find this Code on the internet, or in your local law library.

Generally, you have 30 days to respond from the date they were served, and an additional five days if they were sent to you by mail. This may be different in an unlawful detainer case.

You generally respond by answering each request or interrogatory under its corresponding number, and if an request or interrogatory is unclear, be sure to state that you object because it is vague or ambiguous, or if it is overly broad.

Interrogatories usually take some narrative response, while requests for admission usually require only an "admit" or "deny" for response.

Courses are taught on responding to discovery, but if you are representing yourself, do your best to respond with the information you have, but realize you can only answer with the information reasonably available to you, so don't guess.

I hope this helps.