1. Priscilla's motion concerning the interrogatories
Federal discovery reaches nonprivileged information relevant to claims or defenses and proportional to the needs of the case. Who constructed the falling display and how Grocery trained employees to maintain it bear directly on negligence. The discovery sought is not categorically irrelevant merely because some workers were employed by the soda company rather than Grocery.
There are nevertheless procedural defects. Discovery ordinarily cannot begin before the Rule 26(f) conference absent a permitted exception, stipulation, or court order. The interrogatories accompanied the complaint, so they appear premature. The rule allowing early delivery of certain Rule 34 requests does not generally authorize immediate Rule 33 interrogatories. No exception is given. Grocery can raise that issue, and the court may require proper service after discovery opens rather than immediately compel answers to a premature set.
Rule 33 also ordinarily limits a party to twenty-five interrogatories, counting discrete subparts, without leave or stipulation. Priscilla served twenty-six numbered questions. Asking separately for Grocery employees and soda-company employees may also raise a discrete-subpart issue, although related identification requests can be treated together depending on their logical relationship. In any event the set facially exceeds the ordinary numerical limit. The judge can require a compliant set or allow additional questions upon a justified request; the excess does not necessarily immunize every proper question from later discovery.
Question 25 seeks identities and addresses of persons with direct knowledge. Grocery must provide responsive information reasonably available to it once a proper request is due, including known information about the soda-company workers. It need not manufacture knowledge or obtain records beyond its control, but cannot refuse all inquiry simply because some witnesses work elsewhere. Personal contact information can be managed by an appropriate protective order if a real privacy problem is shown.
Question 26 asks for copies of manuals. Rule 34 is the normal mechanism for document production; an interrogatory ordinarily requests an answer rather than delivery of copies. Grocery also may seek narrowing because every manual used for every subject may sweep beyond display safety. A focused request for relevant training materials would be appropriate, and an otherwise proper interrogatory could ask which manuals were used. The court should not treat the entire universe of employee training as necessarily proportional without considering subject and burden.
Grocery's bare statement that the interrogatories are flawed does not properly identify particular grounds. Rule 33 requires specific objections and answers to unobjectionable portions; unstated timely grounds ordinarily are waived absent good cause. A motion to compel also normally requires certification of a good-faith attempt to resolve the dispute, which the facts do not mention. The sound ruling is to address prematurity, numerical excess, form, and scope, while requiring specific responses to properly served, permissible questions. Neither a blanket order compelling everything exactly as written nor approval of Grocery's boilerplate adequately resolves the issues.
2. Grocery's requested examinations
A Rule 35 examination requires the relevant physical or mental condition to be in controversy, good cause, notice, a suitably licensed or certified examiner, and an order specifying the scope and arrangements. A defendant cannot compel an examination merely by making an ordinary document request.
Priscilla alleges bodily bruising and seeks medical expenses and lost wages from a display falling on her head and body. Her physical condition and injury extent are central to liability and damages. A properly limited physical examination likely is justified to assess those claimed injuries, assuming Grocery supplies the procedural particulars and an appropriate examiner.
Ordinary pain and suffering accompanying bodily injury does not automatically place a distinct psychiatric condition in controversy. No diagnosed mental disorder, extraordinary psychological injury, or expert mental-health claim is described. Grocery therefore has not established good cause for a separate mental examination merely because Priscilla seeks pain-and-suffering damages. The court should deny that request on the present showing, without foreclosing a different result if she later asserts a particular mental condition.
3. Twenty years of tax returns
Lost wages make earnings information relevant, but relevance does not justify every return since 1995 for an accident in 2015. The court should consider the period of actual lost earnings, prior income needed for a reliable baseline, the availability of payroll records, and privacy and burden. Tax returns are not subject to a universal federal privilege protecting them from all discovery, but courts scrutinize whether the information is needed and can be obtained less intrusively.
The motion as framed is overbroad. Grocery should receive proportionate earnings evidence for relevant years, with appropriate redactions or protection, rather than a twenty-year financial history without explanation. The court can narrow the request or deny it without prejudice to a tailored request. A refusal based on privacy alone is too broad, just as Grocery's demand for all historical returns is too broad.
4. The expert response and Xavier
An interrogatory about all experts hired for litigation combines potentially discoverable testifying-expert information with material ordinarily protected for consulting experts. A blanket assertion of privilege does not adequately distinguish those categories. Grocery must make the required disclosures for experts it expects to use at trial, including the applicable report or summary, and explain any protection asserted over withheld information. It need not disclose every unfavorable consultant merely because an opponent asks for all experts.
Rule 26(b)(4)(D) ordinarily protects facts known and opinions held by an expert retained or specially employed in anticipation of litigation who is not expected to testify. Discovery is available in the specified examination setting or upon exceptional circumstances making equivalent information impracticable to obtain by other means. Xavier was hired before suit, but anticipation of litigation can precede filing. A serious accident investigation aimed at the expected claim may qualify; a routine business-safety inspection would not acquire that protection simply because its results are unfavorable.
Xavier has not been identified as a witness, supporting consulting status if litigation purpose is established. His independent-contractor status and exclusive relationship with Grocery do not themselves establish attorney-client privilege, and the court should examine what he was engaged to do. Nor can Grocery avoid required disclosure by withholding the name of someone it actually expects to call. Assuming he was retained for this litigation and will not testify, however, the qualified consulting-expert protection is the appropriate ground.
Priscilla has shown no exceptional circumstance such as destruction of a unique accident condition before any other expert could inspect it. The court therefore likely should protect Xavier's litigation opinions on that assumption, while requiring Grocery to substantiate the claimed protection rather than accepting the single word privileged as sufficient. Ordinary underlying facts and independent witnesses do not become unavailable merely because a consultant also investigated them.