Peacock v. Merrill
Peacock v. Merrill
2008 WL 11425724 (S.D. Ala. 2008)
October 7, 2008

Cassady, William E.,  United States Magistrate Judge

General Objections
Cost Recovery
Sanctions
Attorney-Client Privilege
Attorney Work-Product
Failure to Produce
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Summary
The Merrill Defendants requested answers to interrogatories from the Peacock Defendant, who provided incomplete and evasive responses. The court granted the Merrill Defendants' motion to compel and granted sanctions, including attorneys' fees and costs. The court also noted that ESI was involved and that the responding party must provide sufficient detail to enable the interrogating party to locate and identify the records.
LINDA PEACOCK, Plaintiff,
v.
BURNEY H. MERRILL, et al., Defendants
CA 05-0377-CB-C
United States District Court, S.D. Alabama, Southern Division
Filed October 07, 2008
Cassady, William E., United States Magistrate Judge

ORDER

*1 This matter is before the undersigned pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(A) and Local Rule 72.2(c)(1) on a motion to compel (Doc. 501) filed by defendants Burney H. Merrill, J. Collier Merrill, Willis C. Merrill, and Lawrence Schill, P. A. (“Merrill Defendants”), as amended (Doc. 511), and plaintiff Linda Peacock (“Peacock”)'s response (Doc. 519) to that motion. After a comprehensive review of the record, the defendant's motion to compel is hereby GRANTED.
I. Background
A. Factual Background/Procedural History
On September 29, 2008, the undersigned entered a supplemental Rule 16(b) scheduling order (Doc. 475) allowing the parties an option to come to an agreement concerning the parameters of allowable discovery. The parties responded to this opportunity by coming to such an arrangement on May 22, 2008, according to a letter (Doc. 501, Exhibit A) written from counsel for the Merrill Defendants to counsel for Peacock dated June 30, 2008. That letter, in which the parties agreed to a maximum of thirty (30) interrogatories each, was signed by counsel for both plaintiff and defendant and is taken by the undersigned as a valid extension of the supplemental Rule 16(b) order.[1] (Id.)
The Merrill Defendants served their second set of interrogatories to Peacock on or about July 9, 2008, and alleges that Peacock's response was untimely, a charge Peacock challenges. (Doc. 501, p. 1; Doc. 519, p. 1.) Beyond this starting point, the Merrill Defendants posited that Peacock's answers to a total of ten (10) items were deficient in some major way in his first motion to compel sufficient responses to these interrogatories (Doc. 501). On September 5, 2008, however, Peacock filed a second response to the interrogatories in question. (Doc. 511, p. 1.) The Merrill Defendants report that this new effort sufficiently corrected some of the plaintiff's allegedly deficient responses, though, they mention two interrogatories not included in the original motion to compel as being satisfactorily answered, and maintain that a total of eight interrogatories (including one not mentioned in the original motion) remain incompletely or evasively addressed. (Doc. 511, p. 2.)
Peacock, meanwhile, asserts that not only are her objections to the interrogatories timely, but that her responses are indeed adequate, and that therefore, the Merrills' motion to compel is due to be denied. For the reasons that follow, the undersigned finds Peacock's position regarding the interrogatories at issue irreconcilable with either the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure or accepted federal jurisprudence concerning a party's duties when responding to such interrogatories.
II. Discussion
A. Peacock's Objections as Timely Filed
*2 As an initial matter, the Merrill Defendants claim that Peacock failed to make a timely response to the second set of interrogatories propounded to her. (Doc. 501, p. 1.) As both parties agree that this second set was served on Peacock on July 9, 2008, the court's analysis of whether Peacock's responses of August 11, 2008, are timely is rather straightforward. (Doc. 501, p. 1; Doc. 519, p. 1.) According to Fed.R.Civ.P. 33(b)(2), a party responding to interrogatories has 30 days to do so after service has been effectuated. Fed.R.Civ.P. 6(a), however, mandates both that the day that begins the period be excluded from the relevant calculation and that the last day be excluded if it falls on a Saturday or Sunday. In this case, Peacock's responses would have been due on the 10th of August, but since that was a Sunday, the following day becomes the default due date, designating Peacock's August 11, 2008 responses to the Merrill Defendants' second set of interrogatories as indeed timely, although she clearly left herself no time to spare.
B. Peacock's General Objections to Merrill's Interrogatories
Next, the Merrill Defendants attack what Peacock has termed her “general objections” to the second set of interrogatories the defendants propounded on her. (Doc. 501, p. 2.) One such broad objection reads as follows:
3. Plaintiff objects to each and every discovery request to the extent that (a) the information or documents called for, if any, were obtained and prepared in anticipation of litigation or for trial and (b) the Defendants have made no showing that they have substantial need for the materials in the preparation of their case, and that they are unable without undue hardship to obtain the substantial equivalent of the materials by other means. Plaintiff further objects to each and every discovery request to the extent that the information or documents called for, if any, are privileged and are not discoverable under Rule 26(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
(Id. at 2-3.)
Other such general objections were raised by Peacock, refuting “each and every discovery request” by apparently labeling all information and documents in Peacock's control as “protected from discovery by the attorney-client privilege, the work product doctrine, or other applicable privileges or immunities. (Id.) Attempts of this nature, involving the proverbial “kitchen sink” method of avoiding discovery, are heavily disfavored by our legal system. Fed.R.Civ.P. 33(b)(4) requires that the “grounds for objecting to an interrogatory must be stated with specificity,” and Rule 26(b)(5) mandates that when claiming privilege or the protection of trial preparation materials (both part of Peacock's general objections), the party must first “expressly make the claim,” and then “describe the nature of the documents... not produced” in such a way that other parties are able to assess the claim. By the inherent nature of her general objections, however, Peacock fails to comport with the procedural requirements of Rule 26 and therefore these objections must fail.
Finally, Peacock objects to all discovery requests at issue on the grounds of relevancy, but again this attempt does not past muster. To pick one from a host of cases supporting an identical result, the court in Schaap v. Executive Industries, Inc., 130 F.R.D. 384 (N.D.Ill. 1990) stated that an objecting party must “specifically detail the reasons why each interrogatory is irrelevant.” Id. at 386. See also Roesberg v. Johns-Manville Corp., 85 F.R.D. 292 (D.C.Pa. 1980); Woods v. Kornfield, 9 F.R.D. 196 (M.D.Pa. 1949) (“[O]bjections to interrogatories should be sufficiently specific so that the [other party] may... ascertain therefrom their claimed objectionable character. General objections are not proper, and should not be offered.”); 8A Charles Alan Wright & Arthur R. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure § 2173 (2008).
For the reasons espoused above, Peacock's general objections are hereby OVERRULED.
C. Peacock's Specific Objections to Merrill's Interrogatories
*3 Before turning to a interrogatory-by-interrogatory breakdown of the many ways Peacock's specific objections to the interrogatories are also without merit, the undersigned notes that “[u]ltimately, the question of what constitutes satisfactory responses to interrogatories rests within the sound discretion of the Court and includes the consideration of undue burden to the parties.” Martin v. Easton Publishing Company, 85 F.R.D. 312, 316 (D.C.Pa. 1980) (citing Western Electric Co. v. Stern, 551 F.2d 1 (3rd Cir. 1976)).
Interrogatory No. 9
Merrill's ninth interrogatory to Peacock reads:
Please identify with particularity all amounts paid by Marion Uter to you, prior to March 20, 2002, in repayment of the $511,039.49 obligation memorialized in your November 19, 2001 “Divorce Settlement Agreement” and incorporated into the January 21, 2002 “Final Judgment of Divorce.” Your answer should include an itemization of the amounts paid, the dates on which they were paid, how payment was received (or, if given a “credit” for reasons other than receipt of money, that should be stated and explained), and you should identify with particularity all documents, notes, and writings that evidence such payments.
(Doc. 511, p. 2.)
According to the Merrill Defendants, Peacock's response was that her counsel and their counsel “have agreed to limit this interrogatory such that it asks what Peacock alleges the $40,000 non-cash part of her Floragon purchase price is comprised of and how it was calculated,” a question she then answers in a short paragraph. (Id. at 2-3). The Merrill Defendants, however, deny entering into such an agreement to limit the interrogatory beyond its written form, raising serious doubts as to the veracity of Peacock's claim and lending credence to the Merrill Defendants' view that Peacock has failed to respond to the interrogatory. (Id. at 3.) Nevertheless, Peacock also claims that she has answered the question “to the best of her ability” by sending the Merrill Defendants a check register “which shows amounts that she received from Marion Uter, some of which were NSF transfers.” (Doc. 519, p. 3.)
Peacock's argument must again fail. Fed.R.Civ.P. 37(a)(4) provides that an evasive or incomplete response must be treated as a failure to respond. See also Bollard v. Volkswagen of America, Inc., 56 F.R.D. 569 (W.D.Mo. 1971). Additinally, the court in Milner v. National School of Health Technology, 73 F.R.D. 628 (D.C.Pa. 1977) stated that “[a]nswers must be complete, explicit and responsive. If a party cannot furnish details, he should say so under oath, say why and set forth the efforts he used to obtain the information. [They] cannot plead ignorance to information that is from sources within [their] control.” Id. at 632. Thus, even if the parties hadagreed to rewrite the interrogatory, Peacock's attempt of just handing the Merrill Defendants a check register would still clearly fall below what is required of a party when responding to an interrogatory. See Rainbow Pioneer No. 44-18-04A v. Hawaii-Nevada Investment Corp., 711 F.2d 902 (9th Cir. 1983) (stating that when producing records in response to a discovery request, the response must specify “where in the records the answers could be found.”)[2] Accordingly, the motion to compel is GRANTED with respect to Interrogatory No. 9, and Peacock's objections thereto are hereby OVERRULED. Peacock is now under the strict obligation to comply with the interrogatory as written by the Merrill Defendants within ten (10) days of the entry of this order.
Interrogatory No. 14
*4 Merrill's fourteenth interrogatory reads:
In April 4, 2007 correspondence from “The Computer Professionals” to your attorney (Attached hereto as Exhibit “A”), Mr. Michael Colson states that the computer disk provided to him by your attorney to inspect (i.e. the disk entitled “Quick Books Back-up” batestamp number “Peacock 20441”) was “bent and damaged.” Please identify with specificity how and when “Peacock 20441” became “bent anddamaged,” and who was involved in such damage. If not part of your response, please state who, other than yourself and Mr. Michael Colson, you authorized to have access to the disk, and the date(s) on which you allowed such persons to have access.
(Doc. 511, p. 4.)
Peacock's response:
The Court has already addressed issues concerning Disk 1. Therefore, Peacock objects to this interrogatory on the ground of relevance. Without waiving the foregoing, Plaintiff responds as follows:
I was unable to locate the April 4, 2007 letter referenced in this interrogatory. I understand that a copy of this letter was requested on my behalf, but not provided. Therefore, I am unable to respond with certainty to this question. However, if the April 4, 2007 letter refers to a black disk, then that was Paul Uter's disk; [sic] not mine. I do not know who bent it or any related details. I gave this disk to my then-attorneys Briskman & Binion, and I understand that it later went with my files to Mr. Tommy Zieman's office.
(Doc. 511, p. 5.)
Of course, the relevancy objection that qualifies Peacock's answer may not stand, as this court has not prohibited (further) inquiries regarding the disk or its whereabouts, as the Merrill Defendants correctly point out. (Id.) Further, the undersigned shares the Merrill Defendants' incredulity regarding Peacock's claim that she does not have the April 4th letter in question, as the letter has surfaced repeatedly throughout the course of this litigation. (Id.) Like the letter, the disk in question is also a repeat character in the discussions between two parties, and as such it has been referred to repeatedly by its batestamp number by both parties, making Peacock's claim that she does not know which disk is being referenced duplicitous at best. (Doc. 511, p. 6.) A party “cannot plead ignorance to information that is from sources within their control,” therefore her claim that she was under some confusion as to which disk was being inquired approaches absurdity. Milnersupra, at 632. For her part, Peacock argues that the disk has already been examined by a computer expert, and so the Merrill Defendants' request is irrelevant, but the defendants are entitled to an answer “responsive to the question” and “complete in itself,” without reference to other documents, a discovery right repeatedly upheld in American jurisprudence. Scaife v. Boenne, 191 F.R.D. 590, 594 (N.D.Ind. 2000). See also Dipietro v. Jefferson Bank, 144 F.R.D. 279, 282 (E.D.Pa. 1992) (“The general rule is that answers to interrogatories should be complete in and of themselves, and should not refer to pleadings, depositions, or other documents.”). Accordingly, the Merrill Defendants' motion to compel Peacock's answer to Interrogatory No. 14 is GRANTEDand Peacock's objections thereto OVERRULED. Peacock is ordered to provide a full and complete response to Merrill within ten (10) days of the entry of this order.
Interrogatory No. 15
*5 The Merrill Defendants' fifteenth interrogatory requests: “Please identify all documents (by batestamp number if previously produced) which you utilized or referenced or provided to your accountant for his use or reference in preparing your 2005 tax returns.” (Doc. 511, p. 6.) Peacock's response:
I have searched my records and found none of the materials that would have been provided to my CPA, Mr. Boe Strange. I have been unable to locate all documents that were provided to him. I understand that Mr. Strange has been subpoenaed by the Merrills' attorney for a deposition. I will have the records that I located copied and sent to my attorneys.
(Id.)
The Merrill Defendants argue that Peacock is “required to identify documents in her possession or control that are responsive to this interrogatory,” as her financial records are clearly within her control. (Id. at 7.) Peacock argues that she has answered the interrogatory “to the best of her recollection” before stating: “Ms. Peacock does not know how the basis in ‘her’ Ono Island house was calculated. This is her answer, and it is sufficient under Fed. R. Civ. Proc. 33 [sic].” (Doc. 519, p. 4.) Peacock wavers from her indignant response, however, when she later argues that “[her accountant] is the person to ask how the basis was calculated, and the Merrills will have that opportunity in the near future.” (Id. at 5.)
Unfortunately for Peacock, this argument also falls flat on its face. First, Fed.R.Civ.P. 33(b)(1)(A) relates that interrogatories must be answered “by the party to whom they are directed.” Second, the undersigned would again refer to the decision of Milner, supra, which states: “Answers must be complete, explicit and responsive. If a party cannot furnish details, [they] should say so under oath, say why and set forth the efforts [they] used to obtain the information. [They] cannot plead ignorance to information that is from sources within [their] control.” Id. at 632. Third, more specific disapproval of Peacock's response comes from King v. Georgia Power Co., 50 F.R.D. 134 (N.D.Ga. 1970), in which the court stated: “A party cannot refuse to answer an interrogatory simply because [they] would have to consult books or documents in order to prepare a response.” Id. at 138. Simply telling the requesting party that they will soon have a chance to ask their question to someone else clearly does not provide a responsive answer to the interrogatory. Finally, while it is true that “[a] party may answer an interrogatory by specifying records from which the answers may be obtained and by making the records available for inspection,” Peacock has neither adequately specified the records relevant to this interrogatory norhas she made them available to Merrill's inspection, and in any case, her response “did not specify where in the records the answers could be found.” Rainbow Pioneer, supra, at 906.
Accordingly, Peacock's objections as to Interrogatory No. 15 are hereby OVERRULED and the Merrill Defendants' motion to compel Peacock's answer to the same is GRANTED. Peacock must provide the Merrill Defendants with full and complete answers no later than ten (10) days following the entry of this order.
Interrogatories 16 & 17
Interrogatory No. 16 reads:
Please itemize all amounts you claimed as being your $1,800,000 “basis” in the “Ono Island House[”] as reflected on Schedule D of your 2005 Federal Income Tax return, itemizing the date(s) on which said amounts were spent on the property, how they were spent, the purposes of the expenses, to whom the expenses were paid, how payment was made, the source of the money that was spent, and identify with particularity all invoices, checks, deposits, mortgage loan documents, construction loan draw records, notes, worksheets, and any other documents evidencing your claimed expenditures.
*6 (Doc. 511, p. 7-8.)
Peacock's response is simply the terse statement: “I do not know how the basis in the Ono Island house was calculated. I relied on my CPA to handle my taxes.” (Id. at 8.) Later, in her opposing brief (Doc. 519) to the motion to compel, Peacock declines to expound on her answer, supplying the curt statement: “Ms. Peacock incorporates herein by reference her response to [I]nterrogatory No. 15.” (Doc. 519, p. 6.) In her response to interrogatory fifteen, Peacock complains: “The Merrills attempt to turn Ms. Peacock into a CPA by grossly overstating her assets, experience[,] and financial understanding” by asserting that she “should know how the basis in her Ono Island house was calculated.” (Id. at 4.)
Interrogatory No. 17:
Please state with particularity when and how you, or agent(s) working on your behalf, made the determination that your basis in this property was $1,800,000 and state whether you or your agents, at any time, made any calculations of your basis that differed from the basis of $1,800,000 which is stated in Schedule D of your 2005 tax returns.
(Doc. 511, p. 8.)
Peacock's answer is nearly identical to her response to the sixteenth interrogatory, as she states: “I do not know how the basis was calculated, and I do not remember doing any calculations on my own about this basis.” (Id.) Once more, Peacock “incorporates... by reference her response to [I]nterrogatory No. 15” in her brief opposing the Merrill Defendants' motion to compel, providing no further justification for her failure to answer. (Doc. 519, p. 7.)
Yet again, Peacock's arguments do not absolve her of the blatant non-compliance she has exhibited regarding Merrill's discovery attempts. The Merrill Defendants point out that “Plaintiff, not her accountant, represented to the Internal Revenue [Service] that she spent $1,800,000 on her Ono Island house” and that “Plaintiff, not her accountant, would know when and from what source this money was spent.” (Doc. 511, p. 8.) The Merrill Defendants also point out that it was Peacock who “signed the returns which represented to the federal government a $1,800,000 ‘basis’ in the house, and [so] it is the Plaintiff who has the obligation for explaining her basis for this claim.” (Id.) The undersigned is obliged to agree with the Merrill Defendants. Fed.R.Civ.P. 33(b)(1)(A) requires that interrogatories be answered “by the party to whom they are directed,” and again the undersigned invokes the admonition from King, supra: “A party cannot refuse to answer an interrogatory simply because he would have to consult books or documents in order to prepare a response.” Id. at 138. In Essex Builders Group, Inc. v. Amerisure Insurance Company, 230 F.R.D. 682 (M.D.Fla. 2005), the court stated that a party answering an interrogatory “cannot limit [their] answers to matters within [their] own knowledge and ignore information immediately available to [them] or under [their] control,” and that if the answering party does not have the information necessary to provide a full and complete response itself, they “should so state under oath and should set forth in detail the efforts made to obtain the information.” Id.at 685 (emphasis added) (citing Continental Illinois Nat. Bank & Trust Co. of Chicago v. Caton, 136 F.R.D. 682, 684 (D.Kan. 1991)). See also Transcontinental Fertilizer Co. v. Samsung Co., Ltd., 108 F.R.D. 650, 652-53 (E.D.Pa. 1985). Turning to Caton itself, the Kansan court provides: “All discovery requests are a burden on the party who must respond thereto,”and that “[u]nless the task of producing or answering is unusual, undue[,] or extraordinary, the general rule requires the entity answering or producing the documents to bear that burden.” Catonsupra, at 684-85.
*7 Consequently, Peacock's objections to Interrogatories No. 16 and 17 are OVERRULED, and the motion to compel the same is GRANTED. Peacock is hereby ordered to provide the Merrill Defendants with full and complete responses regarding these interrogatories within ten (10) days of the entry of this order.
Interrogatory No. 18
Merrill's eighteenth interrogatory reads:
Please state with particularity what portion of the 15% stock interest, which is the subject matter of this litigation, that you claim was “taken” from you by Ben Beddingfield, Frederick Schaefer, and Howard Page (See paragraph 2 of Document 337).
(Doc. 511, p. 9.)
Peacock's response:
See Plaintiff's Responses to Merrill Defendants' Interrogatory numbers 2 and 5 as well as Plaintiff's Responses to Merrill Defendants' Request for Production of Documents, Item numbers 3 and 6. As discovery is ongoing, Plaintiff reserves the right to supplement their response after depositions of the aforementioned individuals have been completed. Plaintiff objects to this discovery request on the basis that is [sic] has been asked and answered in previous discovery from the Defendants. However, without waiving said objections, I purchased 15% of the stock and membership interests in the Floragon companies listed in Exhibit B to the First Amended Complaint. The sale of stock and membership interests signed by me and Marion Uter on March 20, 2002 [sic] lists the parties' ownership interest after my purchase. This ownership interest for the parties other than me and Marion Uter agrees with the March 8, 2002 [sic] “share ownership memo” prepared by Mr. Rick Schaefer to “all stockholders/members - FFPM/FFP/FTL/FML.”
(Doc. 511, p. 10.)
As the Merrill Defendants point out, nowhere in Peacock's discursive paragraph does she answer the interrogatory propounded to her. (Id.) While Peacock's response could be construed as an assertion that she may provide an answer to the question after she has taken some depositions, the Merrill Defendants observe that Peacock has already deposed the people in question, further exposing the ridiculousness of Peacock's rambling response. (Id. at 10-11.) Peacock, for her part, merely calls the motion to compel this interrogatory “disingenuous” before mentioning her responses to other interrogatories and other documents. (Doc. 519, p. 8.) Peacock and her counsel seem to forget that “[i]t is well established that an answer to an interrogatory must be responsive to the question” and “should be complete in itself and should not refer to the pleadings, or to depositions or other documents, or to other interrogatories.” Scaife, supra, at 594. See also Dipietro, supra, at 282; Caton, supra, at 684. Accordingly, Peacock's objections to the Merrill Defendants' eighteenth interrogatory are OVERRULED and the motion to compel Peacock's answer therein is GRANTED. Peacock is hereby ordered to provide the Merrill Defendants with a full and complete response to the interrogatory within ten (10) days of the entry of this order.
Interrogatory No. 19
Merrill's nineteenth interrogatory asks:
Please describe with particularity the circumstances under which the electronic information contained on the “external hard drive” (see correspondence from your counsel dated January 22, 2008, a copy of which is attached as Exhibit “B,” was placed there. Your response should include, at a minimum, the time(s) and date(s) on which the information was copied, the person(s) involved in the copying, and the reason(s) for making the copy. (emphasis supplied).
*8 (Doc. 511, p. 11.)
Peacock's response:
I could not locate the letter referenced in this question, and understand [that] my attorneys requested a copy of it from the Merrills' attorney, but it was not provided. Accordingly, I cannot answer this question. However, if it refers to the hard drive, [sic] which was provided to a Computer Backup representative prior to the Alderman and Computing Solutions' [sic] depositions, then on Memorial Day, 2007, I took my hard drive to previous counsel, Tommy Zieman. Mr. Zieman hired an IT consultant, Semih Kangal, to make two fully complete mirror image copies of my hard drive. One of these copies was forwarded to Bridge City Legal in Oregon; the original was kept at Mr. Zieman's office, it was then provided to my attorneys at Baker Donelson and is now in the possession of the Computer Backup representative.
(Id.)
The Merrill Defendant again point to the subterfuge with which Peacock responds to an interrogatory, this time claiming that she did not receive a letter which was from her own counsel, was attached to the interrogatory, and has been filed repeatedly as an attachment to other court documents. (Id. at 12.) Such pretensions cannot stand in our federal court system as a matter of judicial economy, as it was directly foreseeable that this discovery process was headed towards court action after the seriously deficient responses Peacock has repeatedly attempted. Furthermore, Peacock's answer does not provide a complete and full response to the Merrill Defendants' interrogatory, and so will (“must”) be treated as a failure to respond following Fed.R.Civ.P. 33(a)(4). Again, “answers to interrogatories must be responsive, full, complete and unevasive,” and an answering party “cannot limit [their] answers to matters within [their] own knowledge and ignore information immediately available to [them] or under [their] control.” Catonsupra, at 684.
Peacock responds that the parties have agreed to permit “the Merrills' computer consultant” to examine the hard drive at issue, and that the Merrills have already deposed “a representative of the computer company who created the hard drive for Ms. Peacock,” and so therefore, the motion to compel should be denied. (Doc. 519, p. 8.) Although the Merrill Defendants clearly view Peacock's conduct throughout the course of this discovery process as contemptible to the highest degree, the undersigned instead agrees with George Bernard Shaw's statement: “It is not true that men can be divided into absolutely honest persons and absolutely dishonest ones. Our honesty varies with the strain put on it,” and clearly here, the strain was simply too much for Peacock to bear. Nevertheless, our legal system does not afford its parties such niceties, but instead brings upon them swift castigation for untoward conduct. Of course Peacock cannot reference a deposition in answer to an interrogatory, partly because the answer must be itself responsive; this truism has been supported more than once already in this order. See Scaife, supra, at 594; Dipietro, supra, at 282; Caton, supra, at 684.
*9 Peacock's objections to the nineteenth interrogatory are OVERRULEDand the motion to compel her answers to the same is GRANTED. Peacock must provide the Merrill Defendants with a full and complete response no later than ten (10) days after the entry of this order.
Interrogatory No. 20
Merrill's twentieth interrogatory states: “Please list all persons who have been in possession of the external hard drive referenced in Exhibit “B” from the date it first came into your possession, showing the period(s) of time in which it was in their possession.” Peacock's answer to this straightforward interrogatory, however, is again rambling and discursive:
Exhibit “B” was not attached to these questions, so I am assuming it refers to the hard drive discussed in question 19. I am interpreting this question to call for all persons who have had access to any computer that had information ultimately copied onto the external hard drive that has been provided to Computer Backup. I could not possibly list every person because of the large number of people who have used my family's computers throughout the years. However, here is a list that I can currently recall: Linda Peacock, Marion Uter, Paul Uter, Collin Uter, Darin Peacock, Tatum Peacock, Marion's daughter Amy [sic] and her husband, Marshall, Tommy Zieman, [sic] and members of his firm, Semith Kangal, and Bridge City Legal, Sara Jane Lindsey and Briskam & Binion employees, Phil Martin and his children, and my children's friends.
(Doc. 511, p. 13.)
The Merrill Defendants insist that Exhibit B was attached to the interrogatories, but also indicates that even if it were not, the exhibit is the letter discussed in Interrogatory No. 19, from Peacock's own counsel, and attached to a host of other documents submitted to this court. (Id.) Once more, “[a] party cannot plead ignorance to information that is from sources within its control,” and in the rare cases where the information is actually unattainable (and not just absent from the “recollection” of someone who seemingly spent five minutes crafting a deliberately non-responsive statement), “a sworn answer indicating a lack of knowledge and no means of obtaining the requested information is necessary.” Samsung, 108 F.R.D. at 653. Furthermore, although Peacock claims to be confused by the term “possession,” this contention seems to be, like many of Peacock's responses, of dubious veracity. As the court stated in Johnson v. Kraft Foods North America, Inc., 238 F.R.D. 648 (D.Kan. 2006), “a party responding to discovery requests should exercise reason and common sense to attribute ordinary definitions to terms and phrases utilized in interrogatories.” Id. at 656. Finally, the undersigned simply is not inclined to believe that Peacock was actually dumbfounded by the term “possession” as used in the Merrill Defendants' twentieth interrogatory, doubt that receives its justification when one views Peacock's record in answering these interrogatories holistically. “Misleading and evasive answers to interrogatories justify the court's viewing with suspicion the contentions of the party so answering.” Ruiz v. Hamburg-American Line, 478 F.2d 29, 33 (9th Cir. 1973).
Accordingly, Peacock's objections to the twentieth interrogatory are OVERRULED and the motion to compel her answers thereto is GRANTED. Peacock is hereby ordered to provide the Merrill Defendants with a full and complete response no later than ten (10) days after the entry of this order.
D. Rule 37 Sanctions
*10 In its motion to compel (Docs. 501 and 511), the Merrill Defendants move for sanctions to be imposed against Peacock pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 37(a)(5), which in relevant part commands that if a motion to compel is granted, “the court must, after giving an opportunity to be heard, require the party or deponent whose conduct necessitated the motion, the party or attorney advising that conduct, or both to pay the movant's reasonable expenses incurred in making the motion, including attorney's fees.”Fed.R.Civ.P. 37(a)(5)(A). The only exceptions to the operation of this rule apply when (1) “the movant filed the motion before attempting in good faith to obtain the disclosure or discovery without court action,” (2) “the opposing party's nondisclosure, response, or objection was substantially justified, or (3) “other circumstances make an award of expenses unjust.” Id. The undersigned finds none of these exceptions to apply to Peacock's efforts, and so GRANTS the award of attorneys' costs and fees associated with the Merrill Defendants' efforts to compel Peacock's responses to its interrogatories, including both their original (Doc. 501) motion to compel and its supplement (Doc. 511). Such awards, far from being exceptional or extraordinary, have been de rigueur in our court system since 1970. See Milner, 73 F.R.D. at 633; Samsung, 108 F.R.D. at 653; Bollard, 56 F.R.D. at 586.
III. Conclusion
After consideration of the foregoing, the undersigned hereby OVERRULESPeacock's objections to Interrogatories Nos. 9, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, and 20, and GRANTS the Merrill Defendants' motion to compel regarding the same. Further, the undersigned is himself compelled to GRANT the Merrill Defendants' request for an award of attorneys' fees and costs after failing to find evidence of any countervailing factor pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 37(a)that would excuse Peacock's failure(s) to answer the interrogatories in question. The Merrill Defendants have until October 17, 2008, to supply the undersigned with a breakdown of the reasonable fees and/or costs they have been forced to undergo as a result of Peacock's noncompliance with these interrogatories. Peacock will then have until November 3, 2008 to object as to the reasonableness of the figure(s) presented by the Merrill Defendants.
DONE AND ORDERED this 6th day of October, 2008.

Footnotes

Fed.R.Civ.P. 33(a)(1) dictates that no more than 25 written interrogatories may be served by a party onto another “[u]nless otherwise stipulated or ordered by the court.” Against this backdrop of statutorily-granted discretion, the undersigned wishes to make clear that he has always considered the interrogatories in question, all numbered less than 25 anyway, as valid parts of the court-ordered discovery process.
The Ninth Circuit cited to Rule 33(c) which has been amended and renumbered as Rule 33(d)(“If the answer to an interrogatory may be determined by examining, auditing, compiling, abstracting, or summarizing a party's business records (including electronically stored information), and if the burden of deriving or ascertaining the answer will be substantially the same for either party, the responding party may answer by: (1) specifying the records that must be reviewed in sufficient detail to enable the interrogating party to locate and identify them as readily as the responding party could; and (2) giving the interrogating party a reasonable opportunity to examine and audit the records and to make copies, compilations, abstracts or summaries.”)