*1 This civil action is before the Court on the “Motion to Compel Defendant to Appear for Deposition, Respond to Plaintiffs' Third Discovery Requests, and Supplement Discovery Responses and Document Production” filed August 18, 2022, by the Plaintiffs, William Harrison and Cathexis Holdings, LP. (Doc. 92).[1] The motion has been fully briefed. (See Docs. 96, 98). Upon due consideration, the Court finds and orders as follows:

With regard to the present motion's request that the Court order the Defendant, Steven James Forde, to appear for a deposition, the primary conflict underlying this request appears to have been whether Forde would appear remotely or in-person for his deposition, given that he was in Australia at the time counsel were negotiating over the deposition. Forde concedes in his response that his counsel declined to schedule Forde's deposition after the Plaintiffs' counsel would not agree to a remote deposition and insisted on an in-person one. (See Doc. 96, PageID.1410). The Plaintiffs' motion corroborates that concession, asserting that Forde's counsel “reversed course” and “would no longer allow Forde to be deposed” after the Plaintiffs turned down Forde's request for a Zoom deposition and insisted on an in-person one. (See Doc. 92, PageID.1337). However, Forde's response, filed September 9, 2022, states that Forde “is now in the United States.” (Doc. 96, PageID.1411). Now that Forde is more readily available for an in-person deposition with all counsel, the primary conflict preventing his deposition from being scheduled appears to have resolved.

Accordingly, the Plaintiffs' present motion (Doc. 92) is DENIED as to the request to compel Forde to sit for a deposition. Counsel for the parties are ORDERED to confer in good faith and reach an agreement on when, where, and how Forde's deposition will take place. If the parties are unable to reach an agreement with SEPTEMBER 23, 2022, the Plaintiffs may unilaterally notice Forde's deposition under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 30(b) specifying the time, manner, etc., of their preference. Once his deposition has been so noticed, it is incumbent upon Forde to promptly seek a protective order challenging the notice. Otherwise, his failure to appear at the deposition will result in the imposition of appropriate sanctions, up to and including rendering default judgment against him. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(d).[2]

*2 Because the Plaintiffs agree to it, the length of Forde's deposition is limited to one day of 2 hours, unless extended by agreement of the parties. Additionally, given that the parties have previously agreed that the remaining discovery in this action should be limited to matters relevant to the new allegations, claims, and causes of action made in the Plaintiffs' Third Amended Complaint (Doc. 88), and that the parties were previously ordered to make “good-faith efforts” to so limit the remaining discovery (see Doc. 91, PageID.1323), it is ORDERED that Forde's deposition is limited to matters relevant to the new allegations, claims, and causes of action made in the Plaintiffs' Third Amended Complaint (Doc. 88).[3]

With regard to the present motion's request that Forde be ordered to respond to the Plaintiffs' Third Discovery Requests, consisting of interrogatories and requests for production, the Plaintiffs represent that those were served on June 24, 2022; thus, responses were due July 25, 2022. See (Doc. 22 ¶ 9, PageID.104-105 (ordering that responses to interrogatories, requests for admission, and requests for production were due within 30 days of service unless extended by agreement of the parties); Doc. 91, PageID.1322-1323 (the limitations in ¶ 9 of the scheduling order continue to apply for remaining discovery)).[4] After Forde failed to respond, the Plaintiffs emailed his counsel demanding responses be provided by August 5, 2022. On August 3, 2022, Forde's counsel served objections to the Third Discovery Requests and stated he would not produce any responsive documents or information. The Plaintiffs' counsel contacted Forde's counsel the next day to state that they deemed Forde's objections waived as being untimely served. Forde's counsel replied that he “would not respond to Plaintiffs' Third Discovery Requests and instead stand by his objections.” (Doc. 92, PageID.1341).

In their present motion, the Plaintiffs again argue that Forde should be compelled to respond to their Third Discovery Requests because he waived any objections to doing so by failing to timely serve objections. Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 33, a party must serve “its answers and any objections” within 30 days of being served with interrogatories (unless a different time is stipulated by the parties or ordered by the court). See Fed. R. Civ. P 33(b)(2). Similarly, a party must respond to requests for production under the same time constraints, and those responses must “specify the grounds for objecting to the request, including the reasons.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 34(b)(2).

Forde's response perfunctorily addresses the Plaintiffs' waiver argument in a single footnoted sentence, claiming that the “Plaintiffs' argument that Defendant waived objections avoids the point that Plaintiffs' discovery was invalid from its inception since it exceeded court ordered numerical and scope limits.” (Doc. 96 n.1, PageID.1408). Forde has cited no authority to support this proposition, and the undersigned rejects it as circular logic—a party cannot withhold timely objections to discovery requests on the grounds that the requests are objectionable. As stated above, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure require the responding party to timely raise any objections to interrogatories and requests for production by serving them on the party making the discovery request.[5]

*3 Because Forde's objections were untimely served and therefore waived, the present motion is GRANTED to the extent it requests that Forde be compelled to respond to the Plaintiffs' Third Discovery Requests. Forde must serve complete responses, without objections, to the Plaintiffs' Third Discovery Requests no later than 3 days prior to the date of Forde's deposition, see supra, unless the Plaintiffs agree otherwise.

Finally, the present motion requests that Forde be compelled to supplement his responses to Harrison's Interrogatory No. 8 and Request for Production No. 2. In his response, Forde represents that has produced supplemental material to his counsel, who will then produce it to the Plaintiffs' counsel. With regard to Interrogatory No. 8, Forde's responses states: “As far as the alleged Australian bank account is concerned, there is no bank account so there is nothing to supplement.” In reply, the Plaintiffs acknowledge this supplementation, but argue that (1) “for clarity, Plaintiffs seek an order from the Court that Defendant produce all documents that are responsive to Harrison's Request for Production No. 2,” and (2) that Forde “should supplement his answer to Interrogatory No. 8” to affirmatively state whether he in fact has any Australian bank accounts.

Because the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure already, by their nature, impose a duty to produce all responsive material in response to a discovery request, and because the Plaintiffs have not identified anything specific they claim Forde has withheld in response to Harrison's Request for Production No. 2, the Plaintiffs' request that Forde be ordered to produce all documents that are responsive to Harrison's Request for Production No. 2 is DENIED as redundant. However, in light of Forde's deposition testimony regarding same being ambiguous on the issue, Forde is ORDERED to supplement his response to Harrison's Interrogatory No. 8 to affirmatively state whether he has any Australian bank accounts, and to provide the requested information on them if he does. Otherwise, in light of Forde's supplemental production following the filing of the present motion, the motion is MOOT to the extent it seeks an order compelling Forde to supplement his discovery responses. All the above-described supplementation should be completed no later than 3 days prior to the date of Forde's deposition, see supra, unless the Plaintiffs agree otherwise.

Under the most current modification to the Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 16(b) scheduling order for this action, all remaining discovery was to be completed by September 9, 2022, and dispositive motions are to be filed by September 23, 2022. (See Doc. 91, PageID.1322-23). The deadline for discovery completion is hereby extended to OCTOBER 7, 2022, and only for the limited purpose of completing the discovery addressed in this order. The deadline for filing motions for summary judgment and any other dispositive pretrial motion is extended to October 21, 2022.

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37(a) allows for awards of reasonable expenses incurred in making or opposing a motion to compel, including attorney fees, depending on how the court rules on the motion. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(a)(5). To the extent any party believes he or it is entitled to such reasonable expenses in relation to the present motion to compel, that party must file a motion for such expenses no later than OCTOBER 28, 2022. Any such motion must include points and authorities explaining why the party is entitled to expenses in making or opposing the present motion compel, and must provide argument and evidence supporting both the amount and reasonableness of the expenses requested. A party's failure to timely file such a motion will be deemed a waiver of any entitlement to reasonable expenses related to the present motion to compel (Doc. 92). A separate briefing schedule will be set for any timely filed motion for expenses.

*4 DONE and ORDERED this the 16th day of September 2022.