Discovery Objections Cheat Sheet

This page provides a cheat sheet for discovery objections for lawyers.

Elsewhere on this website, we talk about the importance of forcing defendants to provide meaningful answers to interrogatories, requests for the production of documents, and other discovery responses and requests. If we do not hold defendants’ feet to the fire, we toss away a powerful tool to box in defendants for trial — and provide evidence that we are not giving the case the care and attention it deserves.

But this is an adversarial process. Sometimes, you should not give complete answers to an interrogatory because the question is objectionable. Practically, discovery objections also allow you to avoid answering difficult questions.

The onus is on the party receiving the objection to force the issue. Just like you can take advantage of lazy or distracted lawyers by forcing answers to your interrogatories, you can also gain an advantage by not answering arguably objectionable interrogatories. The filing of timely discovery objections defers the requirement to answer the question until the defendant objects to your objections.

You need to be clear in your objections or risk waving them. Federal Rule 33(b)(4) emphasizes that the “grounds for objecting to an interrogatory must be stated with specificity. Any ground not stated in a timely objection is waived unless the court, for good cause, excuses the failure.”

Generally, interrogatories are objectionable if they seek information not within the scope of discovery defined in Maryland Rule 402 or Federal Rule 26(b). These are typically requests that are not relevant, unduly burdensome, broad, vague, or privileged. or protected by the work product doctrine.

• Sample interrogatories in all types of personal injury, medical malpractice, and wrongful death cases.
• More sample discovery

List of Sample Objections

Sometimes, it is hard to come up with the exact words of why you want to object or to match the feeling that the request is objectionable with the appropriate law. So here are some sample interrogatory objections, a cheat sheet that might help you determine how to object to interrogatories (that can also be applied to other discovery objections):

• Plaintiff objects to this interrogatory as vague, ambiguous, argumentative, overbroad, unduly burdensome, and not reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence. [This is a classic general objection you should use sparingly. Boilerplate objections do not go over well with judges.]
• Plaintiff objects to this interrogatory because it calls for the plaintiff to make a legal conclusion. [Don’t go crazy with this one, either. “An interrogatory is not objectionable merely because it asks for an opinion or contention that relates to fact or the application of law to fact, but the court may order that the interrogatory need not be answered until designated discovery is complete, or until a pretrial conference or some other time.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 33(a)(2).]
• Plaintiff objects because this interrogatory calls for pure conjecture and speculation. It is not the plaintiff’s job to guess what would have happened in an alternative universe.
• Plaintiff objects to this interrogatory because this interrogatory is so broad, uncertain, and unintelligible that the plaintiff cannot determine the nature of the information sought. Therefore, the plaintiff cannot provide an answer.
• Plaintiff objects to this interrogatory because this interrogatory calls for privileged information within the attorney-client privilege that it seeks information that is the attorney’s work product.
• Plaintiff objects because the identification, photocopying, and production of the requested documents would be oppressively burdensome and costly. The information or documents will be made available for review at their storage location during business hours at a mutually convenient time. Alternatively, upon request, the plaintiff will provide the defendant with an estimate of what it would cost to procure and produce these documents, and the parties can agree on the cost of such a production. (This is usually a defendant’s objection, actually. Federal Rule 26(g) requires parties to consider discovery burdens and benefits before requesting discovery or responding or objecting to discovery requests and to certify that their discovery requests, responses, and objections meet the rule requirements.)
• Plaintiff objects to this interrogatory because it seeks information in the possession of, known to, or otherwise equally available to the plaintiff.
• Plaintiff objects because the answer to this question may violate the defendant’s protection against self-incrimination. (Boy, you are behind the 8-ball if this is your answer, but we have made this response before.)
• Plaintiff objects to the entirety of this request because it is not reasonably calculated to lead to admissible evidence. Instead, it was filed for the purpose of harassing, oppressing, embarrassing, and annoying a woman who everyone agrees is a victim by seeking discovery of matters that have zero relevance to this lawsuit. [Let’s concede this is probably a little much.]
• Plaintiff objects to this interrogatory because it seeks information from third parties and information not within its possession, custody, control, or personal knowledge.
• Plaintiff objects to this interrogatory because it requires the responding party to marshal all of its available proof or the proof the party intends to offer at trial. [But the evidence marshaling objection will only get you so far.]
• Plaintiff objects to this interrogatory because the only possible purpose of this request is to harass and cause hardship to the plaintiff and needlessly increase the cost of litigation to the plaintiff or her counsel.
• Plaintiff objects to this interrogatory because it asks for a compilation, summary, or analysis of documents or information. Creating such a compilation or summary would require undue effort and is beyond the scope of standard discovery requests. In other words, do your own document production. We get this sometimes when the defendants want us to summarize the medical records.
• Plaintiff objects to this interrogatory in that it requests information that will not be known until after additional discovery is completed.
• Plaintiff objects to this interrogatory because the defendant had exceeded the number of interrogatories allowed by Maryland law.
• Plaintiff objects to this interrogatory because it requests confidential and/or proprietary information. The information sought is sensitive and disclosure would compromise personal or business confidentiality. As plaintiffs’ lawyers, this one one we see often but not one we have ever used.
• Plaintiff objects because this request calls for the disclosure of attorney work product prepared in anticipation of litigation or for trial. Moreover, the defendant has failed to demonstrate a substantial need and the substantial equivalent of which the defendant would be unable to obtain by other means without due hardship.
• Plaintiff objects to this interrogatory because it contains a compound, conjunctive, or disjunctive questions. [Heads up for defense lawyers using compound interrogatories to end-run limits on the number of interrogatories.]
• Plaintiff objects to this interrogatory as it is duplicative of prior requests. The information sought has already been requested in previous interrogatories or discovery requests, making this interrogatory unnecessary.
• Plaintiff objects to this question as premature. She has not fully completed discovery and has not completed trial preparation. Further discovery, legal research, and analysis may supply additional information. So the responding party reserves the right to supplement these responses at trial. [This gives you some cover with the jury if you change an interrogatory answer. Some judges will require the party reading the answer to the jury to also read the objections.]
• Plaintiff objects to this interrogatory as it imposes an unreasonable time constraint for a response. The deadline provided for the response does not allow a reasonable amount of time to gather and provide the requested information.

What Are The Most Common Objections To Interrogatories?

The most common discovery objection our lawyers see is the objection that the interrogatories are not relevant to the litigation or are too burdensome to answer. Another objection our attorneys see frequently because we asked detailed questions that pin down defendants is that the request calls for a legal conclusion. The legal conclusion objection is rarely a valid objection.

Finally, we also commonly see the objection that we have not properly defined a term in the question. This is one of the silliest objections we see. You have to combat this strategy for answering interrogatories by not providing answers but holding the other party’s feet to the fire to provide reasonable responses.

If I’m Trying To Avoid Objections, Should I Draft My Interrogatories Narrowly?

You should draft contention interrogatories and other interrogatories seeking specific responses narrowly. But a big part of interrogatories is throwing out a big net to capture all the information that is out there that you may not have even considered. It is a bad idea to write interrogatories fearing objections.

You will likely get objections to your interrogatories. Many times, we have gotten objections to the language of interrogatories that were taken verbatim from the Maryland Rules. Again, the key to overcoming these objections to interrogatories is to first press the party to provide meaningful responses. If that fails, you file a motion and seek relief from the court.

What Are General Objections?

General objections are a list of general objections that presumably apply to all responses to the discovery requests. General objections are almost invariably useless. But defense lawyers love them. The modern version of Federal Rule 34 arguably prohibits any general objections.

Interrogatory Object Cases of Interest

• Horton v. Tex. Fed’n for Child. Pac., Inc. (2024): There are limitations when compelling a party to produce documents that are not in their “possession, custody, or control,” highlighting that a party cannot be compelled to produce documents held by third parties unless certain control conditions are met. (But, as we have been saying, this case underscores boilerplate objections will not fly.)
• Aceco Valves, LLC v. Neal (2024): Friendly reminder to all of us that if our response to a discovery request was initially accurate but is no longer complete or correct, we must supplement or correct its response.
• Mills v. Zeichner (2024): Don’t ring the sanction dinner bell with a good meal to serve. And if you keep doing it, you might face sanctions yourself.
• DIRECTV, Inc. v. Puccinelli (2004): This is an important case for the definition of relevant. The court held that the concept of relevance in discovery is interpreted expansively. A discovery request should be deemed relevant if there is “any possibility” that the information requested might pertain to any party’s claim or defense. If the relevance of the discovery is evident initially, the onus falls on the party opposing the discovery to prove its irrelevance. This can be done by showing that the requested discovery falls outside the extensive scope of relevance as defined under Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1), or that its relevance is so marginal that the potential harm caused by the discovery outweighs the general principle favoring comprehensive disclosure. On the other hand, if the relevance is not immediately clear from the interrogatory or request, the responsibility lies with the party requesting the discovery to demonstrate the relevance of the sought information or documents.
• W. Pico Furniture v. Superior Court (1961): Often cited California Supreme Court case for the idea that objections such as compound questions or assuming facts not in evidence, more appropriate for oral examination, are not grounds for objecting to written interrogatories.

Key Maryland Cases

• Food Lion v. McNeill, 904 A.2d 464, 393 Md. 715 (2006). This case is the seminal Maryland case for the rule that there is no sandbagging in discovery. Food Lion was a worker’s compensation case where the employer tried to challenge the plaintiff’s expert witness disclosures because they failed to provide disclosures required under the rules. It clearly was a discovery violation but the defendant waived the right to seek relief because it waited until trial to raise the issue of insufficient expert interrogatory responses. Federal law is similar.
• Shenk v. Berger, 1991, 587 A.2d 551, 86 Md. App. 498 (1991). This is a little point to objections to interrogatories. But if you are a plaintiff’s lawyer, you must know this rule. If the defendant has surveillance films or Facebook posts of your client and wants to use them as evidence, they must be disclosed AFTER the plaintiff’s deposition. So asking a question that covers this will not protect your client from getting blindsided with this impeachment evidence at a deposition.
• Kelch v. Mass Transit Administration, 411 A.2d 449, 287 Md. 223 (1980). The court found in this bus-motorcycle crash that you demand discovery, the responding party must tell you when objecting whether they have the document (or tangible thing) being sought.