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
The Court sets a limit of 25 requests for admission under Rules 26(b)(2)
and 36 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Per “side” means parties
represented by the same counsel. Any party may seek relief from this order by
way of motion.