*1 Plaintiff has filed a Motion to Compel Defendants' Responses to Discovery. (Doc. 37). Defendants have responded in opposition. (Doc. 40). The Court held a hearing, and the matter is now ripe for resolution. For the reasons below, Plaintiff's motion to compel will be granted.

Plaintiff names three parties as Defendants—Trudy Adams, John “Clay” Williams, and Laundrylux. Plaintiff is in the commercial laundry equipment business. One of its competitors is Defendant Laundrylux. Defendants Adams and Williams used to work for Plaintiff as sales managers. In the summer of 2023, they left Plaintiff's employ and started working for Defendant Laundrylux.

Plaintiff claims that when Defendants Adams and Williams left, they took with them proprietary trade secrets and confidential business information belonging to Plaintiff. And Plaintiff alleges that Defendants are now using the trade secrets and confidential business information to unfairly compete with Plaintiff. In terms of legal claims, Plaintiff's complaint alleges trade secret misappropriation, breach of the duty of loyalty, tortious interference with business relationships, breach of contract, conversion, and civil theft. Defendants have asserted breach of contract and retaliatory termination counterclaims.

Early in the litigation, the parties submitted a joint stipulated protective order and a stipulated order regarding the maintenance and production of electronically stored information (ESI). Both orders were signed by Judge Rodgers. (Docs. 33, 34). Given the nature of this case, the protective order establishes specific procedures to ensure the confidentiality of trade secret and proprietary business information. More specifically, the protective order states that the producing party may mark any such information as either “confidential” or “highly confidential—attorneys eyes only.” And those designations come with specific limitations on how such information may be used and who may view it.

On January 22, 2024, Plaintiff served Defendants with interrogatories and requests for production. Defendants responded with a litany of objections, as well as refusals to produce various categories of documents. Additionally, Defendants have produced some documents with significant redactions. Plaintiff has now moved to compel, arguing that Defendants have wrongfully failed to answer the interrogatories and produce the requested documents.

There are nearly fifty discovery requests at issue here. But an examination of the objections made by Defendants reveals that there are several big picture issues at play. Resolving those big picture issues resolves the objections raised to the individual discovery requests.

First, Defendants' response to Plaintiff's discovery requests begins with several pages of “General Objections.” (Doc. 37-1 at 3-7). It appears the “General Objections” were just cut and pasted into the response without much thought as to whether they actually applied here. Aside from being a poor strategy (really, what is the point of doing this?), such “General Objections” violate the Local Rules and are improper. See N.D. Fla. Loc. R. 26.1(C) (stating that “an objection cannot be set out generally for an entire set of discovery requests”); see also Otto Brands, LLC v. Otto's Express Car Wash, LLC, No. 3:19cv572, 2020 WL 5845739, at *5 (N.D. Fla. Feb. 19, 2020) (recognizing that “General Objections” asserted to all discovery requests are improper). Thus, Defendants' “General Objections” are akin to no objection at all and fail to provide a basis for refusing to provide Plaintiff with the requested discovery.

*2 Second, Defendants repeatedly responded to Plaintiff's discovery requests by inserting a boilerplate objection that is followed by this language (or something very similar to it): “Consistent with and without waiving or limiting the foregoing general and specific objections, Defendant responds as follows ....” (Doc. 37-1 at 9). This type of producing documents “subject to” or “without waiving” objections approach is improper and fails to preserve any objection to the discovery request. See Ellis v. Pilot Travel Ctrs. LLC, No. 4:19cv219, 2019 WL 13198255, at *2 (N.D. Fla. Sept. 26, 2019) (explaining that a party's “practice of providing discovery responses ‘subject to’ or ‘without waiving’ its objections is improper”); see also Mullins v. Encore Senior Living II, LLC, No. 3:07cv325, 2007 WL 4098851, at *1 n.1 (N.D. Fla. Nov. 16, 2007) (“[T]o the extent that material was produced ‘subject to’ or ‘without waiving’ an objection, [the objecting party] should not expect the objection to be sustained by this court.”).

Third, nearly all of Plaintiff's discovery requests were met with boilerplate objections by Defendants. More specifically, Defendants objected to virtually all the discovery requests as “vague and ambiguous, it is overbroad, unduly burdensome, not limited in time and/or scope, is disproportionate to the needs of the case pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1), the burden and/or expense of the discovery outweighs its likely benefit, and not relevant or reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence.” (Doc. 37-1 at 9). Here again, Defendants' objections are improper. This “throw spaghetti against the wall and see what sticks” type of boilerplate objection has been consistently recognized as ineffective. See Ellis, 2019 WL 13198255, at *1 (“The law in the Eleventh Circuit makes clear that boilerplate discovery objections are tantamount to no objection being raised at all and may constitute a waiver of the discovery being sought.”); see also Otto Brands, 2020 WL 5845739, at *4 (“Objections which state that a discovery request is vague, overly broad, or unduly burdensome are, by themselves, meaningless, and are deemed without merit.”) (cleaned up); Nelson v. Corrections Corp. of Am., No. 5:05cv52, 2006 WL 8445235, at *1 (N.D. Fla. Jan. 6, 2006) (“Broad-based, non-specific objections are almost impossible to assess on their merits, and fall woefully short of the burden that must be borne by a party making an objection to an interrogatory or documents request ....”).

The prohibition on boilerplate objections is not new, and Defendants' counsel should have been well aware of it when he drafted the objections in this case. The Court will not wade through the boilerplate and identify which, if any, of the litany of objections may actually apply to a particular discovery request. Thus, Defendants' boilerplate objections are akin to no objection at all and fail to provide a basis for refusing to comply with Plaintiff's discovery requests. Although Defendants have “attempted to provide specific objections in [their] response to Plaintiff's motion to compel,” their attempt “is unavailing.” Ellis, 2019 WL 13198255, at *1. As another court has explained, “the Court will not rely on ... post hoc justifications for [a party's] boilerplate objections.” Lorenzano v. Sys., Inc., No. 6:17-cv-422, 2018 WL 3827635, at *3 (M.D. Fla. Jan. 24, 2018). Thus, “[t]o the extent [Defendants] tried to raise specific objections in [their] Response, the Court finds that [Defendants] waived these objections.” Id.; see also Nelson, 2006 WL 8445235, at *3 (“The objections here were facially insufficient, and thus more specific objections that might have been made are now waived.”).

Fourth, Defendants have stated that they are withholding the production of numerous documents because they contain “trade secret, confidential, proprietary, and financial information.” (Doc. 37-1 at 39). Additionally, Defendants have produced some documents with redactions on the basis that the unredacted documents contain confidential trade secret and proprietary business information. (Doc. 37 at 32-33). This approach by Defendants is a real head-scratcher. There is a protective order in this case—a protective order to which Defendants stipulated. And that protective order outlines a protocol for ensuring the parties can exchange discovery and preserve the confidentiality of trade secret and other proprietary information. Defendants have offered no logical explanation as to why they have refused to produce trade secret and other propriety information (or produced it in redacted form)[1] instead of producing it under the procedure outlined in the protective order.

*3 This is a trade secret misappropriation case, so the argument that Defendants (with a protective order in place) can refuse to produce documents in discovery because they contain trade secret or proprietary information is unpersuasive. See SCIGRIP, Inc. v. Engineered Bonding Solutions, LLC, No. 6:15cv653, 2016 WL 11566647, at *2 (M.D. Fla. Aug. 19, 2016) (stating that the plaintiff in a trade secret case “is entitled to discovery of the information [the defendant] contends is a trade secret to determine whether [the defendant] is infringing [the plaintiff's] trade secrets”); see also WNE Capital Holdings Corp. v. Rockwell Automation, Inc., 2011 WL 13254691, at *6 (S.D. Ala. Aug. 4, 2011) (finding that a party refusing to produce documents “failed to explain why the parties' stipulated protective order ... fails to afford the protection necessary to produce any responsive documents it considers to be proprietary in nature, and/or highly sensitive, and/or containing trade secrets”). Thus, Defendants' objections to Plaintiff's discovery requests on the basis that responding would require the disclosure of confidential business information and/or proprietary trade secret information are not well taken. If responding to a discovery request from Plaintiff would require the disclosure of confidential business information and/or proprietary trade secret information, then Defendants should follow the procedures set forth in the protective order.

Because every discovery request that Defendants have objected to suffers from one or more of the flaws identified above, all of Defendants objections are overruled. That is not to say that Plaintiff's discovery requests are perfect or without fault. Certainly some of them are poorly worded and others seem a tad bit (or perhaps more) aggressive. But instead of focusing in on the particularly problematic discovery requests and lodging specific and well-reasoned objections to them in a manner that complied with the Federal Rules, the Local Rules, and the caselaw, Defendants haphazardly threw out generalized boilerplate objections, ignored the protective order, and responded in a manner that is inconsistent with the Federal Rules, the Local Rules, and the caselaw. It is not the Court's job to figure out what specific objections could have or should have been made and then to rule as if those objections had been made. It is the Court's job to look at the objections that were made. And the objections that Defendants made in this case were improper and meritless. Thus, the Court will grant Plaintiff's motion to compel in its entirety.[2]

That does not completely end the matter, however, because Plaintiff's motion to compel requests an award of expenses. Under Rule 37(a)(5)(A), when the Court grants a motion to compel it “must, after giving an opportunity to be heard, require the party ... whose conduct necessitated the motion, the party or attorney advising that conduct, or both to pay the movant's reasonable expenses incurred in making the motion, including attorneys' fees.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(a)(5)(A) (emphasis added); see also Batchelor v. Nationwide Mut. Ins. Co., 4:22cv81, 2022 WL 18586850, at *2 (N.D. Fla. Nov. 18, 2022) (stating that an award of attorney's fees is “mandatory” under Rule 37(a)(5)(A) unless one of the exceptions applies). But the Court should not order payment if “(i) the movant filed the motion before attempting in good faith to obtain the disclosure or discovery without court action; (ii) the opposing party's nondisclosure, response, or objection was substantially justified, or (iii) other circumstances make an award of expenses unjust.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(a)(5)(A).

*4 Here, the Court has determined that Plaintiff's motion to compel should be granted. The Court believes that Plaintiff attempted in good faith to resolve the dispute without court action, Defendants' nondisclosure was not substantially justified, and there are no other circumstances that would make an award of expenses unjust. Thus, Plaintiff is entitled to an award of reasonable expenses incurred in bringing the motion to compel. To avoid unnecessary expense and delay in determining the amount of the award, this order sets an amount, subject to redetermination. See Batchelor, 2022 WL 18586850, at *2-3 (setting amount of attorney's fees subject to redetermination); see also LaMonica v. Hartford Ins. Co., No. 5:20-cv-63, 2020 WL 9065890, at *2-3 (N.D. Fla. Oct. 20, 2020) (same).

For the reasons above, it is ORDERED that:

DONE AND ORDERED this 15th day of August 2024.