James F. Bell v. Swift & Company

WISDOM, Circuit Judge.

The sole issue on this appeal is whether the district court erred in not requiring the defendant to answer interrogatories propounded by the plaintiff.

A lawsuit is not so rule-bound that one side wins whenever the other side breaks a rule. To succeed in an appeal based on an infraction of the rules, the appellant must show that the infraction was a substantial error prejudicing the appellant’s case. Here, it may be said that the district court erred in refusing to require the defendant-appellee to answer interrogatories the plaintiff-appellant propounded. But the error,…