Courts Make Clear that General Objections are Generally Inappropriate

By Nicholas Brannick
Cole Schotz

Apr 26, 2017

If your practice involves discovery, chances are you have been on the receiving end (and maybe the dispensing end) of prolix boilerplate general objections in response to interrogatories or document demands. Whatever logic may have led to the development of a laundry list of blasé general objections, courts have made clear that they are ineffective for much more than wasting space and annoying judges and that lawyers should stop interjecting them. See, e.g., Fischer v. Forrest, 2017 WL 773694 (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 28, 2017) (Peck, Mag.); Sagness v. Duplechin, 2017 WL 1183988, at *2 (D. Neb. Mar. 29, 2017) (Zwart, Mag.); Liguria Foods, Inc. v. Griffith Labs., Inc., 2017 WL 976626 (N.D. Iowa Mar. 13, 2017); Cafaro v. Zois, 2016 WL 903307, at *1 (S.D. Fla. Mar. 9, 2016) (“Boilerplate objections may also border on a frivolous response to discovery requests.” citing Steed v. Everhome Mortg. Co., 308 F. App’x 364, 371 (11th Cir. 2009)); Heller v. City of Dallas, 303 F.R.D. 466, 482-85 (N.D. Tex. 2014) (“Counsel should cease and desist from raising these free-standing and purportedly universally applicable ‘general objections’ in responding to discovery requests.”); Waldrop v. Discover Bank (In re Waldrop), 560 B.R. 806, 810 (Bankr. W.D. Okla. 2016). Some state courts have reached the same level of frustration with general objections. See, e.g., In re Oxbow Carbon LLC Unitholder Litig., 2017 WL 959396, at *2-3 (Del. Ch. Mar. 13, 2017).

The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure have long stated that “the grounds for objecting to an interrogatory must be stated with specificity” and since December 1, 2015 the Federal Rules also state that, with regard to document requests, “[f]or each item or category, the response must either state that inspection and related activities will be permitted as requested or state with specificity the grounds for objecting to the request, including the reasons.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 33(b)(4) and 34(b)(2)(B). The word “specificity” in both rules precludes generic “general” objections. See, e.g., Sagness, 2017 WL 1183988, at *2 (“Objections to interrogatories and requests for production of documents must be stated with specificity…. General blanket objections do not meet these specificity requirements and will be disregarded by this court.”). Yet many lawyers persist in lodging general objections. See Fischer, 2017 WL 773694, at *1 (“Most lawyers who have not changed their ‘form file’ violate one or more (and often all three) of [the] changes” to Fed. R. Civ. P. 33(b)(2)(B)-(C)).

General objections can be lumped into three broad categories:

Objections “Preserving” Rights Already Preserved Under the Civil Rules. These objections typically assert a general ground for objection that would be preserved whether stated or not. Some examples of these objections include:
Objections to the extent that a request or interrogatory implicates privileged material. Privileged material is already excluded from the scope of discovery under Civil Rule 26(b)(1) and a generic assertion of privilege is, in and of itself, useless under Civil Rule 26(b)(5)(A)(ii). See Schultz v. Sentinel Ins. Co., Ltd., 2016 WL 3149686, at*7 (D. S.D. Jun. 3, 2016) (“boilerplate ‘general objections’ fail to preserve any valid objection at all because they are not specific to a particular discovery request and they fail to identify a specific privilege or to describe the information withheld pursuant to the privilege”); Liguria Foods, 2017 WL 976626, at *11 (failure to provide privilege log renders privilege objections ineffective).
Objections to the extent a document request purports to require a party to obtain information that is not within its possession, custody or control. If the request purports to impose such a burden, it does not comply with Civil Rule 34(a)(1) in the first instance.
Objections that reserve the “right” to supplement responses. Parties are required to supplement their responses under Civil Rule 26(e)(1). See Heller, 303 F.R.D. at 484. This “objection” is pointless.
Objections that the production of a document is not an admission of authenticity, relevance, materiality or admissibility. Given that the scope of discovery expressly includes inadmissible documents under Civil Rule 26(b)(1), there can be no waiver arising from the production of inadmissible documents. And the Federal Rules of Evidence regarding admissibility exist for a reason.