§ 156.935 - Discovery.

§ 156.935 Discovery.

(a) The parties must identify any need for discovery from the opposing party as soon as possible, but no later than the time for the reply specified in § 156.937(c). Upon request of a party, the ALJ may stay proceedings for a reasonable period pending completion of discovery if the ALJ determines that a party would not be able to make the submissions required by § 156.937 without discovery. The parties should attempt to resolve any discovery issues informally before seeking an order from the ALJ.

(b) Discovery devices may include requests for production of documents, requests for admission, interrogatories, depositions, and stipulations. The ALJ orders interrogatories or depositions only if these are the only means to develop the record adequately on an issue that the ALJ must resolve to decide the case.

(c) Each discovery request must be responded to within 30 days of receipt, unless that period of time is extended for good cause by the ALJ.

(d) A party to whom a discovery request is directed may object in writing for any of the following reasons:

(1) Compliance with the request is unduly burdensome or expensive.

(2) Compliance with the request will unduly delay the proceedings.

(3) The request seeks information that is wholly outside of any matter in dispute.

(4) The request seeks privileged information. Any party asserting a claim of privilege must sufficiently describe the information or document being withheld to show that the privilege applies. If an asserted privilege applies to only part of a document, a party withholding the entire document must state why the nonprivileged part is not segregable.

(5) The disclosure of information responsive to the discovery request is prohibited by law.

(e) Any motion to compel discovery must be filed within 10 days after receipt of objections to the party's discovery request, within 10 days after the time for response to the discovery request has elapsed if no response is received, or within 10 days after receipt of an incomplete response to the discovery request. The motion must be reasonably specific as to the information or document sought and must state its relevance to the issues in the case.