*1 THE BACKGROUND OF THIS ORDER IS AS FOLLOWS:

Plaintiffs are delivery drivers whose employer, a restaurant known as Wings Over Happy Valley (“Wings”), allegedly required them to share their tips with kitchen workers in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”). (Doc. No. 1.) The named Plaintiffs represent a FLSA collective into which numerous Plaintiffs opted following the commencement of this lawsuit. On August 2, 2021, about three months after denying Plaintiffs' motion for equitable tolling as to all opt-in Plaintiffs, the Court granted the parties' request for an extension of time to complete fact discovery, to be completed by October 31, 2021. (Doc. Nos. 101-04.) At a November 4, 2021 status conference, counsel for Defendants[1] reported a discovery impasse, and the Court ordered counsel to submit letter briefs in support of their positions and a proposed briefing schedule for dispositive motions. (Doc. No. 106.) The parties have since submitted letter briefs (Doc. Nos. 107-08) and a proposed briefing schedule (Doc. No. 109).

The parties' discovery dispute concerns Defendants' “Second Set of Interrogatories for Answer by Plaintiffs and Second Request for Production of Documents” by which they propounded, on September 30, 2021, two interrogatories (“Interrogatories”) and a request for document production (“Document Request”), to wit:

(Id.) Defendants seek these disclosures for the purpose of showing, by way of a partial motion for summary judgment, that Plaintiffs cannot prove any “willful” conduct sufficient to trigger FLSA's three-year statute of limitations. See 29 U.S.C. § 255(a).

Plaintiffs objected to the Interrogatories and Document Request on several grounds, including overbreadth and burdensomeness. Without waiving those objections, however, Plaintiffs provided the following responses:

(Doc. No. 108-2 at 4-5.)[2] As to Defendants' Document Request, Plaintiffs responded by stating, “Defendants are already in possession of the requested documents.” (Id. at 6.)

Defendants now argue that Plaintiffs' objections to the Interrogatories and Document Request should be stricken, or, alternatively, that Plaintiffs be required to submit “complete” responses. (Doc. No. 108.) The Court is unpersuaded by Defendants' contentions. This case is four years old and has involved a protracted procedural history during which Defendants propounded, in 2017, the following interrogatory: “[i]dentify all facts and documents that support [the] contention that Defendants' alleged violations of the statutes cited in [the] [c]omplaint were willful.” (Doc. No. 108-3 ¶ 21.) Plaintiffs objected to that interrogatory, including on grounds of overbreadth, but nonetheless provided this response on September 15, 2017:

(Id.) Defendants did not take issue with Plaintiffs' response, did not file a motion to compel, and did not alert the Court to any discovery issues after conferring with Plaintiffs' counsel. Instead, four years later, Defendants propounded the disputed Interrogatories and Document Request, to which Plaintiffs objected but nonetheless responded.

Plaintiffs have a continuing obligation to supplement their discovery responses, see Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(e)(1), and here, they have represented that they provided all document discovery relating to the issue of willfulness. If at some point it is revealed that Plaintiffs failed to fulfill their Rule 26(e)(1) obligations, the Court and parties can address those failures when, if ever, they arise. In any event, given that Plaintiffs have produced all documents relevant to the issue of willfulness, the Court discerns no basis for directing Plaintiffs to reproduce those documents at this late stage of the proceedings. Furthermore, to the extent Defendants contend that Plaintiffs are required to compile information from other discovery to establish their position concerning willfulness, that argument has no merit. See e.g., Pappas v. Loew's, Inc., 13 F.R.D. 471, 473 (M.D. Pa. 1953) (noting that “interrogatories requiring compilation of [previously produced document discovery] ... would be improper,” and that “[c]opies [of documents referenced in interrogatories] need not be furnished” (internal quotation marks omitted)).

*3 Regarding the Interrogatories, Plaintiffs provided Defendants with specific references to deposition testimony that they seek to use to prove that Defendants willfully violated FLSA provisions.[3] Based on their representations, Plaintiffs have no further information to identify. To the extent Defendants argue that Plaintiffs are obligated to pinpoint all potentially relevant deposition testimony concerning willfulness, the Court agrees with Plaintiffs that they should not be required to list each and every transcript excerpt tending to support their contention that Defendants mandated tip-sharing despite being aware of FLSA's tip-sharing prohibitions. (Doc. No. 107 at 2) (citing Principal Life Ins. Co. v. DeRose, No. 1:08-cv-2294, 2010 WL 11549913, at *5 (M.D. Pa. Jan. 11, 2010) (stating that “there does not exist a hard and fast rule mandating that the responding party provide an index or other legend to guide the propounding party to locate each and every document, and link it to each and every interrogatory to which it might be responsive”)). Because Plaintiffs have adequately responded to Defendants' Interrogatories and Document Request despite their initial objections to those requests and despite Defendants' failure to object to their prior disclosures, the Court will deny Defendants' request that the Court strike Plaintiffs' objections or order them to provide additional discovery responses.[4]

AND SO, on this 1st day of December 2021, IT IS ORDERED THAT: