The Tennessee motion to compel: no certification required, but fees run both ways

Tennessee's Rule 37 is procedurally simpler than most modern versions — there is no certification requirement, so the motion is not conditioned on a prior attempt to resolve the dispute.

What Tennessee does not simplify is the cost. The award is mandatory in both directions: the court "shall" require payment when the motion is granted, and "shall" require it from the movant when it is denied.

So filing is easy and losing is expensive. Build the record even though no rule makes you.

What can be compelled

Rule 37.01 carries the familiar grounds — a deponent who fails to answer a question, a corporation that fails to make a designation, a party that fails to answer an interrogatory, and a party that fails to respond that inspection will be permitted or fails to permit it.

It also carries the standard evasive-answer provision: an evasive or incomplete answer is to be treated as a failure to answer. That is what most real disputes turn on, and it is worth quoting rather than arguing around.

When taking a deposition on oral examination, the proponent of the question may complete or adjourn the examination before applying for an order.

Fees, both ways, both mandatory

Tennessee is symmetric: the award is mandatory when the motion is granted and mandatory when it is denied, subject in each case to substantial justification or other circumstances making an award unjust, and reaching the party or deponent whose conduct necessitated the motion, the attorney advising that conduct, or both.

Because there is no certification requirement, the substantial-justification question will be decided on the correspondence. Create that record before filing — a letter identifying the specific deficiency and giving a date to cure does the work the certification would otherwise do.

Once an order is disobeyed

Rule 37.02 supplies the sanctions where a party fails to obey an order to provide or permit discovery — deemed-established facts, preclusion, striking pleadings, staying proceedings, dismissal, default judgment and contempt.

Rule 37.03 carries the expenses provision for a wrongful failure to admit: a party who proves a matter the other side refused to admit may recover the reasonable expenses of making that proof, including attorney fees, subject to the usual exceptions.

Rule 37.04 allows sanctions where a party fails to attend their own deposition, serve answers to interrogatories, or respond to a request for inspection.

Before you file

1. Confirm proper service and that the response period has run — see Tennessee discovery deadlines.
2. Write the deficiency letter. No certification is required, but the mandatory fee exposure makes the record matter.
3. Quote the evasive-answer provision where the response was thin rather than absent.
4. Complete or adjourn a deposition before applying.
5. Consider Rule 37.04 where nothing at all was served.

If the case is heading toward a dispositive motion, note that Tennessee gives thirty days' notice but only five days to respond on the facts — see Tennessee summary judgment.

How Tennessee compares

A short checklist

1. Send the deficiency letter first, even though the rule does not require it.
2. Identify each item you are compelling rather than complaining generally.
3. Quote Rule 37.01's evasive-answer provision for thin responses.
4. Complete or adjourn the deposition before moving.
5. Expect a mandatory award either way — file only what you can defend as substantially justified.
6. Use Rule 37.03 after proving something wrongly denied.
7. Use Rule 37.04 where nothing was served at all.

Where these rules live

• Tenn. R. Civ. P. 26 — General Provisions Governing Discovery
• Tenn. R. Civ. P. 33 — Interrogatories to Parties
• Tenn. R. Civ. P. 34 — Production of Documents and Things
• Tenn. R. Civ. P. 36 — Requests for Admission
• Tenn. R. Civ. P. 37 — Failure to Make or Cooperate in Discovery: Sanctions

This page explains what the rules say. It isn't legal advice, and what makes an opposition substantially justified is developed in case law this site doesn't cover.