Inequitable to Find Waiver Where Improper Boilerplate Objections Were Made to Improper Requests

What happens when improper boilerplate objections meet improper discovery requests?  Generally, boilerplate objections are deemed to constitute a waiver of objections.  However, a court held that it would be inequitable to find waiver “ because so many of Plaintiffs’ requests are sufficiently premature, overly broad, unduly burdensome, and/or disproportionate given Arch’s third-party status that it would be inequitable to do so.”  Tieman v. American Risk Svcs., LLC, 2026 WL 507920, at *2 (W.D. Mo. Feb. 24, 2026).  The court struck the subpoena and ordered a “do over.”

In Tieman, Plaintiffs had developed a “novel and lucrative insurance product….” They sought an insurance underwriter to issue policies.  They negotiated with Arch Insurance Company (“Arch”). They were introduced to another related company and they alleged fraudulent inducement by that company and Arch.

The claims against Arch were dismissed, while the other claims proceeded. The court wrote:

Now before the Court is a discovery dispute related to a third-party subpoena Plaintiffs served on Arch. The subpoena contains fifty-seven document requests spanning as much as seven years of time. It appears Arch has not produced any documents in response to the subpoena.

Arch made boilerplate objections, asserting heightened protection under Rules 26 and 45 as a non-party.  Plaintiffs argued that Arch is “an integral player” and that the boilerplate should be ignored.  Arch also interposed a number of other objections.

BOILERPLATE v. EQUITY

The Tieman court wrote: “As a threshold matter, the Court is disappointed by the parties’ inability, or unwillingness, to narrow the scope of their dispute before seeking the Court’s intervention. That said, the Court agrees with both parties.”  Id. at *2.  Plaintiffs were correct in asserting boilerplate. Arch was correct in asserting its third-party status.

ARCH’S OBJECTIONS WERE BOILERPLATE

The Tieman court quoted a response that was typical of Arch’s objections:

Objection. This Request is overly broad, unduly burdensome, and disproportionate to the claims, defenses and issues in the case, and seeks documents that are not relevant to the claims or defenses of any party and not reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence.[1] This Request is also premature and unduly burdensome because Plaintiffs just recently served their first and only discovery requests directed upon any defendant in the Underlying Action, which seek the same or substantially the same documents as requested here, and have not yet received Defendant’s responses or documents. Plaintiffs have not sought discovery from ARS or any other Defendant likely in direct possession of the requested documents. This Request calls for the disclosure of documents that are in the possession, custody, or control of Defendants in this action. To the extent[2] they exist, Plaintiffs can obtain such documents directly from Defendants; it is improper to impose such a burden on a third party. This Request is also vague and ambiguous; it is unclear what documents are actually being requested by Plaintiffs. To the extent this Request can be understood, it appears to seek confidential, proprietary and/or commercially sensitive business information belonging to non-party Arch. This Request is also overly broad and unduly burdensome because it contains no temporal limitations and would require Arch to search through an unreasonable amount of documents. Responding to this unreasonable Request would likely require the hiring of an outside vendor at a significant hourly rate to locate, review, and produce the requested information and overall would require Arch to incur significant expense. Finally, this Request seeks sensitive and confidential business information belonging to Arch.

The court found this to be boilerplate, writing: “The constant in almost all of Arch’s responses is that they fail to specify exactly how the request is deficient. Consequently, these responses are textbook boilerplate objections as described in the Court’s Initial Standing Order.”  Id. at *2.

EQUITY DEFEATED THE ARGUMENT THAT BOILERPLATE = WAIVER

The Tieman court did not find waiver based on boilerplate:

Ordinarily the Court would summarily rule almost all of Arch’s objections to be waived. But the Court cannot do so in this case, because so many of Plaintiffs’ requests are sufficiently premature, overly broad, unduly burdensome, and/or disproportionate given Arch’s third-party status that it would be inequitable to do so.

Id. at *2 (emphasis added).

The court held that Plaintiffs should have first sought discovery from Defendants before issuing this subpoena to a non-party.  It wrote:

Turning to Arch’s complaints, while Plaintiffs are correct that Rule 26(d)(3) does not require Plaintiffs to obtain discovery from the existing Defendants before seeking discovery from a third-party such as Arch, sequencing discovery on Arch to take place after party discovery is substantially complete makes practical sense in this case.

Id. at *3. The court wrote that there was a “substantial overlap between the documents in the Defendants’ possession and the documents Plaintiffs seek from Arch (for example, request #5 seeks “All communications and documents sent to or received from any current Defendant to this case about the Agreement”)….” Id.  In my words, Plaintiffs could get these documents from Defendants, and should, before imposing costs on a non-party.

The Tieman court also directed Plaintiffs to “limit the scope of their subpoena by custodian, subject, and timeframe.”  It directed that confidentiality be addressed and found “some amount” of cost-sharing to be proper. Id.

CONCLUSION

The Tieman court concluded:

The devil, of course, is in the details. Given the lack of good-faith effort put forth by the parties to resolve their dispute without the Court’s intervention, the Court declines to rule on the specifics of each of the fifty-seven requests (which is an excessive number of requests to seek from a third-party). Instead, the Court directs Plaintiffs and Arch to re-start this process from the beginning with the Court’s above observations in mind. That is, the Court strikes the pending subpoena in its entirety. Plaintiffs may prepare and serve a substantially revised subpoena, to which Arch will respond with non-boilerplate responses.

Id. at *3 (emphasis added).

For more information on boilerplate, please see:

• “Boilerplate” Objections Are Generally Condemned; Except When They’re Not (Oct. 9, 2024);
• E-Discovery 101 – – A Refresher on the Scope of Discovery + Boilerplate Objections Sustained (Sep. 16, 2024);
• General Objections, Dracula, and “Whac a Mole” (Apr. 16, 2024);
• Court Excused Party From Waiver by Failure to Provide Specific Objections (Aug. 7, 2022);
• “Old” Sedona Paper Implements the “Specificity” Provision of Discovery Responses (Dec. 9, 2021).

On a more general basis, please see:

• Concise Summary of Scope of Discovery and Principles Governing Objections (Dec. 2, 2025);
• Four General Principles Governing Document Requests and Objections (Dec. 29, 2025).

For an interesting strategic approach to discovery responses, see Accurate and Complete Discovery Responses Can Be Strategically Advantageous (May 13, 2024).

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[1] The “not reasonably calculated” language was removed from the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in December 2015.  See “Reasonably Calculated to Lead to Discovery of Admissible Evidence” (Nov. 6, 2024); “Boilerplate” Objections Are Generally Condemned; Except When They’re Not (Oct. 9, 2024).

[2] “To the extent” objections have been condemned.  Age-old Habit of “Subject to” Objections Waives Them; So Does “To the Extent” Objection (Nov. 19, 2025).