Waiver of Objections to Discovery

There is federal authority that provides that failing to object to discovery requests during the thirty (30) days to respond or to request an extension waives any objections.  There is no law dealing with this in Mississippi Courts but most judges take the position that as long as parties agree on a set time frame to respond, not objections are waived.  There is law to the contrary though.  Courts have found objections waived, including those based on attorney-client privilege and the work-product protection, where a party serves no response at all for a lengthy time after a response is due, where the party fails to provide a privilege log, and where the nature of the information requested suggests that an objection would normally be made. See Richmark Corp. v. Timber Falling Consultants, 959 F.2d 1468, 1473 (9th Cir. 1992) (stating that "a failure to object to discovery requests within the time required constitutes waiver of any objection"); Davis v. Fendler, 650 F.2d 1154, 1160 (9th Cir. 1981) (finding that untimely service of responses to interrogatories waives objections where no response or objection at all was provided); see also Horace Mann Ins. Co., 238 F.R.D. at 538 (holding an untimely assertion of attorney-client privilege was waived when asserted twenty-two days late, without a privilege log, and where the dispute by its very nature involved communications between battling insurance companies and their lawyers); Pham v. Hartford Fire Ins. Co., 193 F.R.D. 659, 661-62 (D. Colo. 2000) (finding a claim of privilege waived where the defendant failed to file objections to interrogatories until 71 days after the interrogatories were served); Smith v. Conway Org., Inc., 154 F.R.D. 73, 76 (S.D.N.Y. 1994) (deeming waived a work-product objection asserted nearly four months after the document request was served).