The High Court has struck out in full a set of interrogatories delivered by Goode Concrete in its proceedings against CRH plc, Roadstone Wood Limited and Kilsaran Concrete. Mr Justice Max Barrett ruled that the 873-page document, containing about 8,000 questions, was unreasonable and oppressive.
The judgment, delivered on 31 March 2022, concerned the defendants’ applications to strike out the questions and, if any remained, to require security for the costs of answering them. Because the interrogatories were struck out in their entirety, the judge said it was unnecessary to decide the security applications.
The proceedings began in 2010 and were entered in the High Court’s Competition List. The judgment recounts earlier appeals and discovery orders, including a Court of Appeal decision in 2020 that dismissed Goode Concrete’s appeal against discovery orders, subject to a variation concerning one category of discovery sought from the CRH defendants. After the proceedings were re-admitted to the Competition List in 2021, Goode Concrete indicated it no longer required the defendants to make discovery and intended instead to deliver interrogatories.
Justice Barrett found that many of the questions were requests for documents or categories of documents, some of which had previously been refused through the discovery process. He said interrogatories could not be used to reopen discovery or to obtain documents by another route. Other questions were irrelevant to the pleaded issues, sought evidence or witness identities, or demanded extensive narrative rather than short factual answers. The judge also noted that the questions purported to direct which company officers should answer, although court leave was required to interrogate particular officers.
The court’s appendix examined sample questions about contracts, pricing, costs, suppliers, meetings and other matters. It identified some questions that could be answered, but found the interrogatories as delivered unacceptable overall. The judge said the cost of answering them would run to hundreds of thousands of euro and concluded that the defendants had established grounds for striking them out.
The court indicated that costs should be awarded to each defendant, subject to any party notifying the registrar or judicial assistant of an objection. If there were an objection, a brief costs hearing would be scheduled. The judgment does not record a final costs order.