Stover v. Central Broadcasting Co.

Decision Date26 July 1956
Docket NumberNo. 49009,49009
PartiesFred STOVER, Appellant, v. CENTRAL BROADCASTING COMPANY, Appellee.
CourtIowa Supreme Court

Cosson, Stevens, Hauge & Cosson, Des Moines, for appellant.

Bannister, Carpenter, Ahlers & Cooney, Des Moines, and Lane & Waterman, Davenport, for appellee.

THOMPSON, Chief Justice.

On march 13, 1954, the plaintiff filed his petition asking judgment for damages allegedly sustained because the defendant broadcast a radio program in which the plaintiff was falsely and maliciously named a Communist and member of the Communist party. The plaintiff was at the time the president of the Farmers Educational and Cooperative Union of America, commonly known as the Farmers Union. The defendant was the owner and operator of Radio Stations WHO and WHO-FM, and the petition alleged that on February 21, 1954, it broadcast a program entitled 'Last Man Out' in which the alleged defamatory statements were made.

On August 31, 1954, the defendant filed its answer, and in connection therewith on the same date it filed an application for permission to file in excess of thirty interrogatories, under 58 I.C.A.Rules of Civil Procedure, 122. At the same time it filed fifty-seven numbered interrogatories. On September 30, 1954, the plaintiff filed its 'Resistance to Application for Permission to File in Excess of Thirty Interrogatories'. Since we think this resistance is of governing importance in the present appeal, we set it out in full herewith:

'Comes now the plaintiff and resists the defendant's Application for Permission to File in Excess of Thirty Interrogatories and as grounds therefore (sic) states: I. That the plaintiff denies 'that the scope of the relevant matters concerning which this defendant seeks information in this case is so broad that the matters to be inquired about cannot be confined to thirty interrogatories.' and further denies 'That each of the attached interrogatories relates to material issues in this case and the answers to the same rest peculiarly within the knowledge of the plaintiff and the defendant has no adequate source of information regarding the same.' and as a further reason for his said resistance the plaintiff denies that it would be in the interest of justice to require the plaintiff to divulge the information requested in said interrogatories and states that it is not necessary that many of the interrogatories requested be answered in order to permit the defendant to adequately prepare for trial;

'II. That as an additional reason for his said resistance the plaintiff states that many of the interrogatories are not material to the issues in this case and in fact are not interrogatories or questions but are demands for a vast fund of information much of which is not or could not be relevant or material in this case and many of which are not properly necessary for the defendant to have in order to prepare for trial, and for the additional reason that the proper interrogatories proposed in the defendant's said Application, are less in number than thirty (30);

'III. That many of defendant's purported questions are improper, incompetent and immaterial and if answered would not tend to prove or disprove any of the issues in this case and such purported questions show on their faces, and because of the multiplicity and magnitude thereof, that they are filed for the purpose of creating suspicion, prejudice and confusion relative to the actual and real issues involved in this case and not for the purpose of permitting the defendant to adequately prepare for trial.'

It is important to note that no objections were filed to the interrogatories themselves, except such as were contained in the resistance above set forth. On October 16, 1954, with amendment on October 21, 1954, the plaintiff filed his motion for leave to file an amended and substituted petition, with copy of the proposed petition attached. After several hearings, the trial court ordered that the defendant might file fifty-seven interrogatories, as requested; and that fifty-one of them were proper and should be answered. Qualifications were attached to the required answers to some of those which it was held should be answered. This order was entered on November 22, 1954.

On December 3, 1954, the defendant filed its resistance to plaintiff's motion for leave to file an amended and substituted petition. On December 6 following the court entered its order permitting the filing of the amended and substituted petition; but significantly included this language in the order:

'The Court is of the opinion that the proposed amended and substituted petition does not substantially change plaintiff's claim and that in the furtherance of justice the amendment sought should be permitted. Therefore the motion is sustained. * * *

'On November 22, 1954 this Court filed a ruling on application for permission to file in excess of thirty interrogatories. In presenting the motion for permission to amend herein ruled on, counsel made no request for any modification of the ruling dated November 22, 1954, and no modification of said ruling is intended or made in the present ruling.'

On December 16, 1954, the plaintiff filed his 'Motion to Reconsider the Court's Ruling Requiring Plaintiff to Answer 57 Interrogatories'. This motion was denied by the court on January 13, 1955, and on January 17 following the plaintiff filed in this court his application for leave to appeal from the order denying his motion to reconsider. We granted leave to appeal in these terms:

'After consideration * * * it was determined that leave to appeal from an interlocutory order should be granted and it is hereby granted to the extent that the plaintiff is permitted to appeal from the ruling and order of the District Court of Polk County, Iowa, dated January 13, 1955 wherein said court overruled the plaintiff's motion to reconsider the court's ruling filed November 22, 1954, requiring plaintiff to answer certain interrogatories noted in said ruling.'

I. We have set out above the resistance of the plaintiff to the application for leave to file more than thirty interrogatories, and have said that no other objections were filed. A cursory inspection of the resistance shows that no specific objections were lodged against any specific interrogatories. Paragraph I of the resistance concludes with the statement 'it is not necessary that many of the interrogatories be answered in order to permit the defendant to prepare adequately for trial.' Paragraph II alleges 'that many of the interrogatories are not material to the issues in this case, etc.' Paragraph III says that 'many of defendant's purported questions are improper, incompetent and immaterial, etc.' Rule 123 provides for filing objections to proposed interrogatories within seven days. While the specific question has not been passed upon by this court, it seems clear that the objections must be sufficiently specific to point out to the court the claimed reason why each interrogatory need not be answered. Omnibus objections such as the ones contained in the resistance above set out serve no purpose and should not be considered. They say only that 'many' of the interrogatories are improper for stated reasons; but which ones are vulnerable to these complaints is nowhere pointed out. The court is left to speculate as to which interrogatories are thought by the plaintiff to be not necessary to enable the defendant to prepare adequately for trial, which ones not material, which ones improper or incompetent.

While our rules governing interrogatories vary in several respects from the federal rules, we think there is no difference in principle on the matter of filing specific objections. There is the same good reason for requiring that objections must be definite and point out to the court with certainty the weakness or vice in the interrogatory attacked here as in the federal practice. General objections have often been held insufficient in the federal courts and under the Federal Rules Decisions. Thus in Bowles v. Safeway Stores, D.C., 4 F.R.D. 469, 470, it is said:

'General objections to interrogatories are not proper. Boysell Co. v. Hale, D.C., 30 F.Supp. 255; Cyclopedia of Federal Procedure, 2nd Ed., Vol. 6, Sections 2762 and 2986. The reason therefor is that the Court is not required to sift each interrogatory to determine the usefulness of the answer...

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