O'Brien v. International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers
United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia
443 F.Supp. 1182 (1977)
O'Brien (plaintiff) was disciplined by his union, Local 613 of the IBEW (defendants), for distributing information allegedly harmful to the union, and he sued alleging the discipline violated his free speech and assembly rights under the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA). O'Brien served interrogatories asking Local 613 to explain how his specific communications violated his union responsibilities and interfered with the defendants' legal or contractual obligations (interrogatory 4), and separately asking why the LMRDA's free speech provisions did not preclude the union constitutional provisions his communications allegedly violated (interrogatory 6); Local 613 objected to both and refused to answer, and O'Brien moved to compel.
Whether interrogatories asking a party to apply its anticipated legal defenses to the specific facts of the case exceed the bounds of permissible discovery under the federal rules.