Age-old Habit of “Subject to” Objections Waives Them; So Does “To the Extent” Objection

In Re Ex Parte Application of Xiaomi Technology Netherlands B.V., 2025 WL 3068736 (E.D. Tex. Nov. 3, 2025), was an action for “purported need for discovery to assist in a patent dispute in Germany. Xiaomi seeks discovery from Celerity IP, LLC (‘Celerity’), who serves as the exclusive licensing agent of the company Xiaomi faces in the Germany litigation….”

Celerity objected to subpoenas. Xiaomi moved to compel, “arguing that Celerity’s objections are meritless….”

The court wrote:

Celerity makes several objections in response to Xiaomi’s subpoena…. It waived almost all of them. It did so by improperly qualifying its objections using “subject to” language and unacceptably relying on general and boilerplate objections.

The court wrote: “In the introduction to its response and objections to Xiaomi’s subpoena, Celerity stated that “[s]ubject to its General Objections, below, Celerity provides the following Responses and Specific Objections to the Requests” … Including the ‘subject to’ language was Celerity’s first mistake.” [emphasis added].

Quoting a prior decision, it explained that:

The practice of including “subject to” or “without waiving” statements after objections is an age-old habit comparable to belts and suspenders. This practice is “manifestly confusing (at best) and misleading (at worse), and has no basis at all in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.” Such an objection and answer “leaves the requesting

arty uncertain as to whether the question has actually been fully answered,” and “wondering as to the scope of the documents or information that will be provided as responsive.” [emphasis added].

Addressing the objections labeled as “specific,” the court wrote that the “subject to” language “turns the objections general.”  The failure to properly object resulted in waiver.

The court also found waiver by boilerplate objections and “to the extent” objections.  As to the latter, a “to the extent” objection “is not even definitively contending that there is an actual, objection-worthy problem in the request. ‘To the extent that’ is a feeble ‘maybe’ objection behind which the objector lacks the resolve to definitively state whether something actually occurred that warrants objecting. It is the equivalent of saying, ‘I am not sure that this request is worthy of objection, but if it is, then I object.’ Imagine trying such a tactic at trial.”

“While a party can object to discovery requests in full or in part, it cannot preserve its objections by producing discovery ‘notwithstanding’ or ‘without waiving’ those objections.” Carter v. Uzglobal LLC, 2025 WL 3063287, at *2 (D. N. Mex. Nov. 3, 2025).

See generally General Objections, Dracula, and “Whac a Mole” (Apr. 16, 2024); E-Discovery 101 – – A Refresher on the Scope of Discovery + Boilerplate Objections Sustained (Sep. 16, 2024); “Boilerplate” Objections Are Generally Condemned; Except When They’re Not (Oct. 9, 2024).