Short answer. You may be ordered to pay. If the court denies the application and finds it was filed without substantial justification, it may require the proponent, or the counsel who advised filing it, or both, to pay the refusing party's reasonable expenses including attorney's fees.
What the law says
If the application is denied and the court finds that it was filed without substantial justification, the court may require the proponent or the counsel advising the filing of the application, or both of them, to pay to the refusing party or deponent the amount of the reasonable expenses incurred in opposing the application, including attorney's fees.
Rule 29, Section 1 — Refusal to answer. Read the full provision →
Losing the motion is not automatically costly
The rule sets two conditions, and the first alone is not enough. The application must be denied, and the court must also find that it was filed without substantial justification. A motion that fails on a genuinely arguable point does not answer that description. So the risk attaches to bringing a motion that had no real basis, rather than to bringing one that turned out to be wrong.
Your own lawyer can be exposed
The provision names the counsel advising the filing of the application alongside the proponent, and adds or both of them. That mirrors the exposure running the other way in the same section, where the counsel advising a refusal to answer may be ordered to pay. The pattern is consistent: the rule looks past the party to whoever drove the step, in both directions. This is worth knowing when weighing whether a motion is worth making at all.
What the other side can recover
The amount is the reasonable expenses incurred in opposing the application, including attorney's fees. It is measured by the cost of resisting your motion, not by any wider inconvenience. That symmetry with the granting side — where the recoverable amount is the cost of obtaining the order — shows the design. The section is not trying to punish either party but to place the cost of an unjustified discovery skirmish on whoever caused it.
Weigh it before you file
It helps to remember what the section is for. It gives a proponent a route when a party or deponent refuses to answer on oral examination, and the same procedure is available where a party or witness refuses to answer an interrogatory. The examination may in the meantime be completed on other matters or adjourned, as the proponent prefers, so there is usually a choice about timing. Deciding whether a particular refusal is worth a motion — and whether your grounds are substantial — is a judgment to make with your lawyer.