Court Issues Warning To The Bar Regarding Use Of ‘Boilerplate’ Discovery Objections
In Liguria Foods, Inc. v. Griffith Laboratories, Inc., Judge Mark Bennett of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Iowa required both plaintiff and defense counsel to show cause why they should not be sanctioned for discovery abuses based on the excessive use of “boilerplate” objections to discovery requests, according to E-Discovery Law Today.
Writing in the Jackson Lewis blog, he issue arose when the court was reviewing a discovery dispute between the parties and noticed numerous objections that the court deemed to be improper “boilerplate objections.”
“The court subsequently required both parties to submit all of their written discovery responses for the court’s review,” the authors write. “The court also notified counsel of its intention to impose sanctions on every attorney who signed discovery responses it they were found to be improper or abusive. Based on its review of the discovery responses the court determined that numerous discovery responses, from both sides, were improper.”