Biles

I.

Introduction

In deciding this appeal we deconstruct a civil discovery “urban legend” — that a responding party has an affirmative duty to supplement responses to interrogatories if and when new information comes into that party’s possession, particularly if the party reserved the right to amend or supplement the earlier responses. Here a defendant sued in an asbestos personal injury case on a premises liability theory moved for summary judgment, contending that the plaintiff could not show he had been exposed to asbestos on the defendant’s premises in a manner for which the defendant could be held liable. The plaintiff countered with a declaration from one of his former coworkers, stating that while they were both working for a contractor on the defendant’s premises, the defendant’s employees used air hoses to blow asbestos dust in their direction.

The defendant objected to the declaration on the ground that the coworker had not been identified in answer to an earlier interrogatory seeking the names of persons who had knowledge of plaintiff’s exposure to asbestos on the defendant’s premises, and that plaintiff had failed to supplement his answer to include the name.…