Facts
- Hourly industrial-laundry employees sued multiple related business entities and an individual, asserting wage-and-hour violations under the FLSA and Maryland wage statutes.
- Plaintiffs served interrogatories and requests for production; defendants responded with broad, generalized objections and limited substantive information.
- Plaintiffs filed motions to compel, arguing defendants’ responses were inadequate; some defendants opposed through consolidated briefing, while another did not oppose.
- The court held a hearing to resolve the discovery disputes and issued a memorandum opinion addressing discovery conduct and compliance with the Federal Rules.
Issues
- Whether defendants’ generalized, boilerplate objections to interrogatories and document requests complied with Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(g) and related discovery rules.
- Whether the breadth and burden of the requested discovery required limitation based on proportionality considerations.
- What remedial steps were appropriate to bring discovery practice into compliance, including meet-and-confer obligations and potential sanction warnings.
Decision
- The court found defendants’ boilerplate objections inconsistent with Rule 26(g)’s certification requirements and the specificity demanded by Rules 33 and 34.
- The court declined to resolve the full scope of proportionality disputes on the existing record, noting that meaningful assessment required better factual support about burden, cost, and what was being withheld.
- The court directed counsel to meet and confer in good faith, request-by-request, to reformulate discovery requests and objections and to develop a proportional plan (including options such as phased discovery).
- The court required defendants to revisit and supplement responses by eliminating unsupported general objections and by stating with particularity the grounds for any objection and what responsive material, if any, was being withheld.
- The court cautioned that Rule 26(g) violations may require sanctions if certifications are made without substantial justification, though sanctions were not imposed in this ruling.
Legal Principles
- Rule 26(g) functions as a certification requirement comparable in purpose to Rule 11: counsel must make a reasonable inquiry before signing discovery requests, responses, or objections.
- Boilerplate objections (e.g., “overly broad,” “unduly burdensome,” or irrelevance objections stated without particulars) are improper when they are not tied to specific requests and are not supported by concrete facts.
- A party asserting undue burden must provide specific, factual support (such as scope, time, cost, or record-volume information); conclusory assertions are insufficient.
- Discovery is not unlimited; courts may limit discovery when the burden or expense outweighs the likely benefit or when information can be obtained in a more efficient manner.
- Cooperation among counsel in planning and executing discovery is consistent with zealous advocacy and is required to reduce cost and delay and to implement proportional discovery.
Conclusion
The court addressed discovery failures by rejecting unsupported boilerplate objections under Rule 26(g), requiring specific, fact-based objections and supplementation, and ordering a genuine meet-and-confer process to implement cooperative, proportional discovery, while warning that unjustified certifications can lead to sanctions.