Darwin v. Newburgh Operations, LLC

Background

Plaintiff Robin Darwin moved to compel Defendants Newburgh Operations, LLC, doing business as Sapphire Nursing at Meadow Hill, and Tzvi Barax to provide amended responses to document requests and interrogatories. Darwin sought responses containing no objections other than privilege objections, substantive interrogatory answers, either document production or a statement that no responsive documents existed for each request, and information about documents withheld as privileged, including a privilege log.

Rulings on Document Requests

The court granted in part and denied in part the motion. It declined to find that Defendants had waived their right to object to the interrogatories and document requests. The court concluded that the six-day delay in serving discovery responses and the boilerplate nature of the objections did not justify waiver.

The court nevertheless held that Defendants’ document-request responses violated Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 34. The responses improperly repeated general objections for every document request, failed to explain why requests were allegedly overbroad or burdensome, and did not say whether documents were being withheld based on privilege. The court ordered Defendants to serve amended responses curing those violations within seven days of the order.

Ruling on Interrogatories

The court denied without prejudice the portion of the motion concerning the interrogatories. It found that the interrogatory responses were overly general and that some objections based on overbreadth, vagueness, and ambiguity lacked specific explanations. However, the court also noted that some interrogatories did not comply with Local Civil Rule 33.3, which limits the types of interrogatories that may be served at the beginning of discovery. The parties were ordered to meet and confer about the interrogatory responses before presenting further disputes to the court.

Disposition

The motion to compel was granted in part and denied in part. Judge Lewis J. Liman did not find waiver of Defendants’ objections, required amended document responses within seven days, and denied without prejudice the interrogatory-related relief while requiring the parties to meet and confer.