Motions

The Court believes that parties can and should work out most discovery disputes without Court intervention. The Court expects the parties to make a genuine, good-faith effort to resolve disagreements before filing a discovery motion. 

The Court will not hear or consider any discovery motion or non-dispositive dispute unless the movant has complied with the “meet and confer” requirement of Local Rule 37.2. The motion must state with specificity when and how the movant compiled with Local Rule 37.2. Compliance with the Local Rules requires a good-faith effort to resolve discovery disputes, including communications that take place in person or by phone. The exchange of emails or letters will not normally be sufficient to comply with the Local Rules. Motions that do not comply with the Local Rules may be stricken.

If a party requests a meet-and-confer, the other party must respond promptly and participate in a meet-and-confer in a reasonable time.

If an impasse arises about the recovery of electronically stored information (ESI), no discovery motion may be filed unless the parties first meet and confer to determine whether the requested material can be retrieved and, if so, the most effective way of doing so. Such a conference must take place in person or by phone and must be attended by an IT representative of the party (or, for a putative class, an IT representative of plaintiffs’ counsel) that served the request and an IT representative of the party that received the request.

Motions to Dismiss

The pendency of a dispositive motion, such as a motion to dismiss, does not automatically cause discovery to be stayed.

Sequence of Discovery

Parties are reminded that there is no “order” in which discovery must occur. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(d)(3). One party’s failure or inability to respond to discovery will not excuse any other party’s non-compliance.

Boilerplate Objections

Objections to written discovery must state with specificity the grounds for objecting. See, e.g., Fed. R. Civ. P. 33(b)(4) (“The grounds for objecting to an interrogatory must be stated with specificity.”); Fed. R. Civ. P. 34(b)(2)(B) (“For each item or category, the response must . . . state with specificity the grounds for objecting to the request, including the reasons.”). That is, the objecting party must offer a particularized reason tailored to each request.

Boilerplate objections are inadequate and are to be disregarded. For example, a generic assertion that a discovery request is “overbroad” or “unduly burdensome”—without an accompanying explanation—is the same as not objecting at all.

Limit on the Number of Requests for Admission