Court Highlights Cooperation Requirements of Discovery under Rule 26, Rules Objections Waived for Failure to Be Specific, and Orders Meet and Confer to Resolve Remaining Disputes
Electronic Discovery Law:
Mancia v. Mayflower Textile Servs. Co., 2008 WL 4595175 (D. Md. Oct. 15, 2008)
In this employment case, plaintiffs filed several motions to compel supplemental responses to their extensive discovery requests after defendants allegedly failed to adequately respond. The case was eventually referred to Chief United States Magistrate Judge Paul Grimm for the purpose of resolving all of the discovery disputes.
In the initial review of defendants’ objections to the requests, the court noted “an obvious violation” of Federal Rule 33(b)(4) and “facially apparent violations” of Federal Rule 33(b)(2) which require that objections to interrogatories and requests for production be laid out with specificity or else they are waived. Moreover, the court suggested that the defendants’ failure to be particular in their objections “suggested a probable violation” of Federal Rule 26(g)(1) which requires a reasonable inquiry prior to objecting to an interrogatory or document request. Accordingly, the court scheduled a hearing to address the issues.
At the hearing, the court raised concerns regarding both defendants’ inadequate objections to discovery and the breadth of plaintiffs’ requests given what was at stake in the case. Recognizing its obligation, sua sponte, to limit the reasonableness of discovery requests, the court relied on the “proportionality analysis” required under Federal Rule 26(b)(2)(C) and ordered the parties to meet and confer in good faith to determine whether the goals of discovery could be accomplished in a manner proportional to what was at stake.
In a written opinion to more fully explain his concerns, suggestions and rulings, the court wrote: “One of the most important, but apparently least understood or followed, of the discovery rules is Fed.R.Civ.P. 26(g), enacted in 1983.” The court pointed out that rule 26(g) requires that every discovery disclosure, request, response or objection must be signed by the attorney of record or the client,…