Question 1

Which Nebraska discovery disputes do not go through Section 6-337 at all?

Accepted Answer

Three, and each has its own rule. First, requests for admission. They are absent from Section 6-337(a)(3)(B)'s list, and Section 6-336(a)(4) provides that a matter is admitted unless the party serves a written answer or objection addressed to the matter and signed by the party or its attorney within the time allowed. If nothing came back, there is nothing to compel. If an answer or objection came back and is inadequate, the vehicle is Section 6-336(a)(8), a motion to determine the sufficiency of an answer or objection, under which the court must order that an answer be served unless it finds the objection justified, and may order either that the matter is admitted or that an amended answer be served. Second, a person's own previous statement. Section 6-326(b)(3)(C) gives any party or other person the right to obtain their own previous statement about the action, and provides that if the request is refused, the person may move for a court order. That is a compel motion a non-party can bring in their own name. Third, a total failure to respond. Where a properly served party served no answers, objections or written response at all, Section 6-337(d)(1)(A)(ii) is a separate sanctions track that does not need a prior order compelling discovery. All three provisions say that Rule 37(a)(5), the expense provision, applies.

Question 2

Why does a Nebraska discovery response have to reproduce each interrogatory before the answer?

Accepted Answer

Because the rule says so, and it hands a movant the cleanest point available. Section 6-333(b)(5) is headed Form of Answer or Objection and provides that the answering or objecting party must reproduce each interrogatory and then state the party's answer or objection to the interrogatory. Section 6-334(c)(2)(B) requires the same for each production request, and Section 6-336(a)(7) for each request for admission. A response served as a bare numbered list, without the requests standing in front of the answers, does not comply, and a judge can see that in seconds without reading a word about the merits. Nebraska then removed the obvious excuse. Section 6-333(a)(3) provides that upon demand, the party served with the interrogatories must be given an electronic copy of the interrogatories in a readily editable format, so the duty cannot be answered with a complaint about retyping. Two drafting consequences follow. Use the same form in the motion, setting each request out with the whole of the response underneath, because the rule has already told the court that is how the material should look. And if the response did reproduce the requests, say so and move straight to what is missing from each answer.

Question 3

My Nebraska form says the court shall award expenses. Is that the current rule?

Accepted Answer

No. The word in Nebraska's rule today is must. Article 3 was restyled by an order of November 13, 2024 effective January 1, 2025, and amended again on September 3, 2025, and the modal verb went with it: across the whole of the Nebraska Court Rules of Discovery in Civil Cases the word shall now survives in exactly one place, the 1983 promulgating order at Section 6-301, which says the rules shall as written apply in the district courts. Section 6-337(a)(5)(A) reads that the court must, after giving an opportunity to be heard, require payment. The practical difference for a reader is small, because both words make the award mandatory. The difference that matters is what else the restyling changed. The rule's own caption moved from Failure to make discovery: sanctions to Failure to make disclosures or to cooperate in discovery: sanctions, the class of payer widened, and the award now expressly applies where the discovery is handed over after the motion was filed. There is a specific trap here: the Nebraska Supreme Court still publishes the superseded text at a sibling page labelled as the prior version of Article 3, effective before January 1, 2025. A quotation taken from there will read plausibly and be out of date, so check that the page you are quoting is the one carrying the January 1, 2025 heading.

Question 4

Can a Nebraska expense order reach the other side's law firm, not just the party?

Accepted Answer

Yes, and that is a deliberate 2024 addition with no counterpart in the federal rule. Section 6-337(a)(5)(A) provides that if the motion is granted, or if the disclosure or requested discovery is provided after the motion was filed, the court must, after giving an opportunity to be heard, require the party or deponent whose conduct necessitated the motion, the party or attorney advising that conduct, the attorney's law firm or employer, or some or all of them, to pay the movant's reasonable expenses incurred in making the motion, including attorney fees. Comment [4] to Section 6-337 records the change in terms and explains the second word: the original version of the rule did not expressly give courts the discretion to impose sanctions on an attorney's law firm or employer, the 2024 amendments added it in subparts (a), (b) and (d), and the term employer was included to make clear the rule covers in-house and government attorneys. Two limits to hold in view. The award must not be ordered where the movant filed before attempting in good faith to obtain the discovery without court action, where the nondisclosure, response or objection was substantially justified, or where other circumstances make an award of expenses unjust. And the same wide class runs against you under subpart (a)(5)(B) if the motion is denied, on the last two of those exceptions, so the exposure is symmetric.

Question 5

Does Nebraska's compel-disclosure branch let me compel initial disclosures?

Accepted Answer

No, and this is where federal reading habits mislead a Nebraska reader. Section 6-337(a)(3)(A) provides that if a party fails to make a disclosure required by Rule 26(c), any other party may move to compel disclosure and for appropriate sanctions. That looks like the federal initial-disclosure motion, but Nebraska kept the federal rule numbers without the federal subdivision letters. Here Rule 26(c) is expert disclosures and Rule 26(d) is protective orders, which is not where the federal letters fall. So subpart (a)(3)(A) is a motion to compel expert material. Nebraska also has no general initial-disclosure regime for such a motion to reach: the phrase initial disclosure does not appear anywhere in Article 3. Section 6-301's own comment explains the numbering, saying the federal rule numbers were retained for ease of comparison with the law of other jurisdictions, which is exactly the invitation to misread. The practical point is short. If what is missing is answers to interrogatories or documents you requested, you are in Section 6-337(a)(3)(B), not (a)(3)(A), and citing (a)(3)(A) sends the judge to the wrong provision on the first page of your motion.

Question 6

Where does a Nebraska motion to compel go when the dispute is about a deposition?

Accepted Answer

To the court that has the case, with no alternative. Section 6-337(a)(2) is headed Appropriate Court and provides that a motion for an order compelling disclosure or discovery must be made in the court in which the action is pending. Comment [2] gives the reasoning and removes any doubt about the scope: the judge presiding over a case is in the best position to rule on discovery motions, therefore all motions to compel, including those related to a deposition, must be filed in the court in which the action is pending. Nebraska has collapsed the split that sends a deposition dispute to the court where the deposition is being taken, so there is nothing to choose between. The same answer holds where the person withholding material is not a party: Section 6-334A(e)(1)(C) sends a compliance motion to the court where the action is pending as well, and adds that an order compelling compliance must protect a person who is neither a party nor a party's officer from significant expense resulting from compliance. One sequencing point from Section 6-337(a)(3)(C): when taking an oral deposition, the party asking the question may complete or adjourn the examination before moving for an order, so a refusal mid-deposition does not force you to stop.

Question 7

Which Nebraska rule and subdivision authorizes the motion, and what does it reach?

Accepted Answer

Neb. Ct. R. Disc. Section 6-337(a). Subpart (a)(1) provides that on notice to other parties and all affected persons, a party may move for an order compelling disclosure or discovery, and that the motion must include a certification about the good-faith attempt to obtain it without court action. Subpart (a)(3)(B) sets out what the motion reaches: a deponent who fails to answer a question asked under Rule 30 or Rule 31, a corporation or other entity that fails to make a designation under Rule 30(b)(6) or 31(a)(5), a party who fails to answer an interrogatory submitted under Rule 33, and a party who fails to produce documents or fails to respond that inspection will be permitted, or fails to permit inspection, as requested under Rule 34. Subpart (a)(4) adds that for purposes of subpart (a), an evasive or incomplete disclosure, answer or response must be treated as a failure to disclose, answer or respond. Two subdivisions get cited by mistake and both are serious errors in a motion: subpart (b) is sanctions for disobeying an order the court has already made, which is a different and much heavier application, and subpart (d) is the separate track for a properly served party who served nothing at all. Note the citation form as well. These are Nebraska Supreme Court rules numbered Section 6-3xx, even though the text inside them cross-refers to federal rule numbers.

Question 8

How long do I have to bring a Nebraska motion to compel, and is anything lost by waiting?

Accepted Answer

Nebraska's discovery rules set no deadline on the motion and no waiver running against the movant. Sections 6-301 to 6-337 contain no filing window, no trigger and no provision forfeiting the right to move, so a Nebraska litigant is not in the position of one in a state where a fixed count of days ends the right permanently. The waiver written into these rules runs the other way, against the responding party: Section 6-333(b)(4) provides that any ground not stated in a timely objection is waived unless the court, for good cause, excuses the failure. There is one 30-day limit close enough to cause confusion, and it belongs to a different claim. Section 6-337(c) lets a requesting party who later proves a matter at trial move, within 30 days of so proving, for an order that the party who failed to admit pay the reasonable expenses of making that proof. That is about a failure to admit, not about compelling an answer. Two real limits survive the absence of a rule deadline. The case's own scheduling order can close discovery, and an order compelling an answer is worth having only while there is time left to use the answer. Attorney review is available as an option, and it is worth most on the choice between Section 6-337(a), Section 6-337(d) and Section 6-336(a)(8).

Nebraska Motion to Compel

Find out where you stand in Nebraska

Introduction

Key Things to Know

Key decisions before you file

Customize your Motion to Compel Template with DocDraft

Nebraska Requirements for Motion to Compel

The Right Subdivision of Section 6-337, Because Nebraska Has Four Tracks

Confirmation That the Longer of the Two Response Periods Has Run

A Check That Requests for Admission Are Not in Play

Each Request Reproduced With Its Response Underneath

An Objection-by-Objection Note on Specificity and Withheld Material

The Section 6-337(a)(1) Certification, Inside the Motion

Notice to Other Parties and All Affected Persons

The Expense Request, and the Symmetric Risk You Are Taking

Frequently Asked Questions