PATRICIA HARRIS v. EXECUTIVE AFFILIATES, INC., ET AL CIVIL ACTION NO. 23-607-BAJ-RLB United States District Court, M.D. Louisiana January 16, 2025 Bourgeois Jr., Richard L., United States Magistrate Judge ORDER *1 Before the Court is Plaintiff's Motion to Compel Responses. (R. Doc. 45). The deadline for filing an opposition has not expired. LR 7(f). Patricia Harris (“Plaintiff”) alleges that she was injured when a bench located at a hotel owned and operated by Executive Affiliates, Inc. d/b/a Crowne Plaza Executive Center, LLC (“Executive Affiliates”) and manufactured by Dubois Wood Products, Inc. (“Dubois”) gave way while she was sitting on it. (See R. Doc. 1; R. Doc. 1-4). The deadline to complete non-expert discovery expired on December 2, 2024. (R. Doc. 36). The Court reopened non-expert discovery for the sole purpose of securing the deposition of Evelyn Madison, which Plaintiff represents was completed on January 10, 2025. (R. Doc. 54; see R. Doc. 44). Plaintiff filed the instant Motion to Compel on January 10, 2025. (R. Doc. 45). Plaintiff seeks the production of certain documents (including maintenance records, photographs, and incident reports) identified at the deposition of Eric Hoffman, who appears to be the Rule 30(b)(6) corporate representative of Executive Affiliates.[1] Plaintiff asserts that the requested discovery is relevant and proportionate under Rule 26(b), Executive Affiliates has violated its obligations under Rule 34, and the instant motion is merited pursuant to Rule 37. (R. Doc. 2-4). Having reviewed the motion and its attachments, the Court will deny the instant Motion to Compel for the following two reasons. First, the motion is untimely. Local Rule 26(d)(1) provides that the parties may conduct unopposed discovery after the deadline, but that any discovery motion must be filed before the expiration of the discovery deadline: Unopposed discovery may continue after the applicable deadline for discovery contained in the scheduling order, provided that discovery does not delay other pretrial preparations or the trial setting. Absent exceptional circumstances, no motions relating to discovery, including motions under Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(c), 29, and 37, shall be filed after the expiration of the discovery deadline, unless they are filed within seven days after the discovery deadline and pertain to conduct during the final seven days of discovery. LR 26(d)(1) (emphasis added) The instant Motion to Compel was untimely filed on January 10, 2025, over one month after the close of non-expert discovery on December 2, 2024. Plaintiff provides no explanation for the untimely filing of the instant motion. “[I]f the conduct of a respondent to discovery necessitates a motion to compel, the requester of the discovery must protect himself by timely proceeding with the motion to compel. If he fails to do so, he acts at his own peril.” Wells v. Sears Roebuck and Co., 203 F.R.D. 240, 241 (S.D. Miss. 2001). For the foregoing reasons, the Court will deny the instant Motion to Compel as untimely. See LR 26(d)(1); see also Wells, 203 F.R.D. 240, 241; Days Inn Worldwide, Inc. v. Sonia Investments, 237 F.R.D. 395, 396-99 (N.D. Tex. 2006) (motion to compel was untimely filed wo weeks after the discovery deadline; motion should have been filed within discovery deadline) (collecting cases); see also Price v. Maryland Cas. Co., 561 F.2d 609, 611 (5th Cir. 1977) (denying motion to compel filed after the close of discovery where party had been “inexcusably dilatory in his efforts”). *2 Second, the motion seeks to “compel” document productions unsupported by any record of underlying Rule 34 document requests. A party may seek an order compelling the production of documents if “a party fails too produce documents or fails to respond that inspection will be permitted – or fails to permit inspection – as requested under Rule 34.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(a)(3)(B)(iv) (emphasis added). Plaintiff did not attach a copy of any Rule 30(b)(6) deposition notice or any accompanying requests for documents made pursuant to Rule 34. The Court will not compel a party to produce documents in the absence of a timely served Rule 34 request for production. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(a)(3)(B)(iv). Furthermore, to the extent Plaintiff actually served timely Rule 34 requests for production, Plaintiff failed to comply with Local Rule 37, which requires a motion to compel to “quote verbatim” the written discovery requests, responses, and objections at issue. LR 37. In the absence of the underlying document requests and responses, the Court cannot evaluate the timeliness or merit of any responses or objections to the discovery requests. To the extent Plaintiff simply identified potentially discoverable documents at the deposition of Eric Hoffman, she had the opportunity to seek these documents through written discovery or otherwise seek an appropriate extension of the discovery deadlines to do so. The Court will not, however, compel any document productions in response to the instant motion to compel. For the foregoing reasons, IT IS ORDERED that Plaintiff's Motion to Compel Responses (R. Doc. 45) is DENIED. Signed in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on January 16, 2025. Footnotes [1] Based on the record, it is unclear to the Court when this Rule 30(b)(6) deposition took place. Plaintiff cites pages of the deposition transcript, but does not attach a copy of the transcript or otherwise indicate when the deposition took place. (See R. Doc. 45 at 2). The Court, however, is aware that this deposition took place in November 2024 based on submissions in accordance with R. Doc. 39.