Answer: Almost certainly no. See Dahl v. Harrison, 265 P.3d 139, 2011 UT App 389 (2011).
Note: Under the current Utah Rules of Civil Procedure, responses to written discovery requests are due 28 days after they served (See Utah Rules of Civil Procedure 33(b), 34(b), and 33(b) and (c)), but when the Dahl decision was issued, the response period was 30 days.
In Dahl v. Harrison, a party to the underlying lawsuit attempted to serve discovery requests on the opposing party that would have resulted in the fact discovery period ending before 28 days had expired from the date the discovery requests were served.
The party serving the discovery requests argued that no Utah authority supports the argument that the opposing party must have time to respond before discovery closes. “Specifically, counsel stated that the trial court’s granting of the protective order constituted legal error because ‘no rule in Utah … requires that fact discovery be complete by the end of the scheduling order deadline.” (Dahl, at ¶31) (Emphasis in original)
The Utah Court of Appeals ruled that
[¶ 34] . . . it would be inappropriate and untimely under the Utah Rules of Civil Procedure to serve a discovery request on the eve of the discovery deadline, or indeed within thirty days of the discovery deadline, because the responding party would not have adequate time to respond, i.e., to complete discovery in the time permitted by rule. We therefore conclude that a discovery request must be served early enough that the responding party will have a full thirty days in which to respond before the discovery deadline.
¶ 35 We hasten to add that we do not construe the concept of “completeness” narrowly, requiring that every “i” be dotted and every “t” be crossed before discovery can be considered complete. Instead, considering ordinary usage of the word and the purpose of discovery, we suspect that substantial completeness would satisfy the “completeness” requirement. Thus, provided the inquiring party submits his discovery requests early enough to allow the responding party thirty days to respond, if the responding party subsequently delays answering by interposing objections or incomplete answers, that fact will not save the responding party from being required to fully comply with discovery requests which were timely initiated, notwithstanding the expiration of any scheduled deadlines.
¶ 36 We acknowledge that this construction of what it means for discovery to be “complete” leaves the trial court some leeway in determining whether parties have complied with the language and spirit of the rule. However, under no circumstances does the concept that discovery must be complete by a given deadline contemplate that a party has complied by initiating discovery on the day of the deadline, i.e., on the day when discovery was to be “complete.” . . . Under the circumstances of this case, then, we conclude that the court did not abuse its discretion by granting Lawyer’s motion for a protective order.
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