Rule 34.Producing documents, electronically stored information, and tangible things, or entering onto land for inspection and other purposes

Rule 34 covers two related kinds of requests, both limited to matters within the scope of discovery defined by Rule 26(b). The first lets a party ask another to produce documents or electronically stored information -- writings, photographs, sound recordings, data compilations, anything storing information in some retrievable form -- or tangible things, so the requesting party can inspect, copy, test, or sample them. The second lets a party ask to enter land or other property the responding party possesses or controls, in order to inspect, measure, survey, photograph, test, or sample the property or something on it. Either kind of request has to describe what is being sought with reasonable particularity, propose a reasonable time, place, and manner for the inspection, and may specify the form electronically stored information should take when it is produced.

The responding party has 30 days to answer in writing, absent a different schedule agreed to under Rule 29 or set by the court, and has to address each requested item or category individually -- either agreeing to permit what was asked or stating the specific grounds for objecting, including whether anything responsive is being withheld on that basis. A party can offer to produce copies rather than allow an inspection, and once it does, the production has to happen by the time specified in the request or another reasonable time stated in the response. Objections have to be narrowed to the part of a request they apply to, leaving the rest of the request open to inspection. For electronically stored information, if the requesting party did not specify a form, or the responding party objects to the form requested, the responding party has to say what form or forms it intends to use instead. Absent a different agreement or order, documents get produced either as they are kept in the ordinary course of business or organized and labeled to match the categories in the request, and a party need not produce the same electronically stored information in more than one form. Rule 34(c) reminds parties that a nonparty is not reached by this rule directly -- getting documents or an inspection from someone outside the case requires a subpoena under Rule 45.