Garza v. Artisan & Truckers Casualty Insurance Co, 2:21-cv-03816

Plaintiff Mark Garza filed a Motion to Compel Discovery and Motion for Attorney Fees against Northline Logistics, LLC and Melvin Viano in a negligence action.
The Motion to Compel pertained to specific outstanding discovery requests to which defendants failed to respond timely.
Defendants had previously provided partial responses and untimely responded to the motion, submitting mostly boilerplate objections.
The court deferred ruling on the motion pending outcome of a Motion for Partial Summary Judgment on liability, which was subsequently granted.
After the summary judgment ruling, the plaintiff identified discovery requests that remained relevant, maintaining the necessity of the motion as to these items.
The court found defendants’ objections waived due to untimeliness and insufficient specificity, and granted both the Motion to Compel and Attorney Fees.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Motion to Compel Discovery	Defendants failed to timely respond	Discovery requests overbroad, vague, irrelevant (boilerplate)	Granted; objections waived
Timeliness and Sufficiency of Objections	Objections untimely and insufficient	Provided late boilerplate objections	Waived by court
Relevance of Outstanding Discovery Requests	Requests are relevant to claims	Claims requests are not relevant	Requests deemed relevant
Award of Attorney Fees	Entitled under Rule 37 as prevailing party	Not addressed substantially	Fees awarded under Rule 37

In re U.S., 864 F.2d 1153 (5th Cir. 1989) (untimely objections to discovery requests are typically waived)
SSL Servs., LLC v. Citrix Sys., Inc., 769 F. Supp. 2d 1092 (E.D. Tex. 2011) (burden shifts to resisting party to show discovery is improper once movant shows relevance)
Scott v. United States Postal Serv., 661 F. Supp. 2d 622 (M.D. La. 2009) (boilerplate objections to discovery are insufficient and usually waived)