Requests for “Any and All” Documents Are Obsolete – Update

In a 2021 blog, I wrote that Requests for “Any and All” Documents Are Obsolete.  That blog suggests alternative approaches.

Recently, in Nelson v. I.Q. Data International, Inc., 2024 WL 2963790 (E.D. Mich. June 12, 2024), the court wrote:

Courts have long condemned omnibus “any and all” document requests. See Cheney v. U.S. Dist. Court for D.C., 542 U.S. 367, 387-88 (2004) (document requests asking “for everything under the sky” were “anything but appropriate”); Effyis, Inc. v. Kelly, No. 18-13391, 2020 WL 4915559, at *2 (E.D. Mich. Aug. 21, 2020) (finding the defendant’s exceptionally broad discovery requests violated Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(g)). [emphasis added].

I suggest that the alternative approach is well-supported.  A year before my blog, The Hon. Paul W. Grimm (ret.), Charles Fax, and Paul Sandler, described the flaws in that type of request in “Maryland Discovery Problems and Solutions” (Md. State Bar Ass’n. 2020), 28-29, 83.   In 2018, Craig Ball described those requests as “boil the ocean” tactics.   Digital Detectives, “What Makes a Presidential Letter Presidential” (Legal Talk Network Jan. 30, 2018).  That same year, the Sedona Conference recommended that requesting parties avoid the use of “any and all” document requests. See “Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 34(b)(2) Primer: Practice Pointers for Responding to Discovery Requests,” 19 Sed.Conf.J. 447, 464, 467, 469 (2018).

One problem with “any and all” requests is that boilerplate responses often meet boilerplate requests.  See Requests for “Any and All” Documents Are Obsolete.  For example, Sedona suggested that: “Bogging down requests for specific documents with the ‘any and all’ preamble usually serves to draw objections and delay production.”

The Sedona Conference proposed a solution: “Instead, make the request a simple one, such as ‘Produce plaintiff’s work performance evaluations from 2012 to 2015.’”

Judge Grimm, Chuck, and Paul suggested in “Maryland Discovery Problems”:  “Limitation of the inquiry to ‘material’ and ‘principal’ facts, as opposed to ‘all’ facts makes the interrogatory acceptable in form.”

In Maker’s Mark Distiller, Inc. v. Spalding Grp., Inc., 2021 WL 2018880 at *8 (W.D. Ky. Apr. 20, 2021), a party requested “[d]ocuments sufficient to disclose” annual revenue.

For more detail, please see Requests for “Any and All” Documents Are Obsolete (Feb. 4, 2021).

UPDATE: “Additionally, Plaintiff’s request for ‘any and all’ prior grievances or complaints against the four Defendants is overbroad, overly burdensome, and not proportional to the needs of this case.”  Justin-Brownlee v. Burnes, 2024 WL 4957495, at *3 (E.D. Cal. Dec. 3, 2024).

UPDATE:  Airpro Diagnostics, LLC v. Drew Technologies, Inc., 2025 WL 296607 (E.D. Mich. Jan. 24, 2025):

Courts have long condemned omnibus “any and all” document requests. See Cheney v. U.S. Dist. Court for D.C., 542 U.S. 367, 387-388 (2004) (document requests asking “for everything under the sky” were “anything but appropriate”); Effyis, Inc. v. Kelly, No. 18-13391, 2020 WL 4915559, at *2 (E.D. Mich. Aug. 21, 2020) (finding the defendant’s exceptionally broad discovery requests violated Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(g)).