If you’ve been served with a non-party request for production of documents, you are legally required to respond by the deadline on the subpoena, but you have three choices: produce the records, serve a written objection within 14 days, or ask the court to quash or narrow the request. Doing nothing is the one option that puts you at real risk. The subpoena is a court order even though a lawyer, not a judge, signed it, and the rules give you specific protections you have to invoke in writing to keep.
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 45 governs these subpoenas in federal court, and most states follow a similar framework with their own deadlines and geographic rules.1Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 45 – Subpoena What follows is how to decide which response fits your situation and how to protect yourself while you do it.
Your Three Response Options
You can comply, object, or move to quash. You can also mix them: produce the uncontroversial records while objecting to specific categories you think go too far.
Full compliance means gathering the requested documents and delivering them by the deadline. You must produce them either as they are kept in the ordinary course of business or organized and labeled to match the categories listed in the subpoena. Shuffling records to make them harder to use is not an option. For electronically stored information where the subpoena doesn’t specify a format, produce it in the form you ordinarily maintain or another reasonably usable format, and you only need to produce the same information once.1Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 45 – Subpoena
A written objection goes directly to the attorney or party named in the subpoena. Once you serve a timely objection, you are not required to produce anything unless the requesting party goes to court and obtains an order compelling production.1Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 45 – Subpoena This is usually the cheapest and fastest way to push back, because it shifts the burden to them to justify the request before a judge.
A motion to quash is the stronger move, filed with the court before the production deadline. Use it when the subpoena is fundamentally flawed — demanding privileged records, imposing undue burden, or violating the geographic limits. Some grounds trigger mandatory relief, meaning the court is required to quash or modify the subpoena rather than merely allowed to.
The 14-Day Objection Deadline
If you’re going to object in writing, the deadline is the earlier of the compliance date on the subpoena or 14 days after you were served. Miss that window and you lose the right to object without going through the court. The clock starts the day the subpoena is handed to you, which must be done by personal delivery from any adult who isn’t a party to the case.1Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 45 – Subpoena
A motion to quash doesn’t have the same 14-day rule, but it must be filed before the compliance date on the subpoena. If the subpoena gives you a short runway, your motion has to move fast too.
Grounds That Will Get a Subpoena Quashed or Narrowed
Not every objection carries equal weight. These are the arguments courts actually act on:
- Privilege. Communications with a lawyer, work prepared for litigation, and other legally protected material require the court to quash or modify the subpoena. This is mandatory, not discretionary.1Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 45 – Subpoena
- Undue burden. A request that imposes disproportionate effort or cost on you must be quashed or modified. Courts weigh the value of the information against what collecting and producing it would take.1Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 45 – Subpoena
- Unreasonable deadline. A subpoena that doesn’t give a reasonable amount of time to comply must be quashed or modified. A demand for thousands of records in two days is the sort of thing that doesn’t survive.
- Geographic overreach. If the compliance location is more than 100 miles from where you live, work, or regularly do business, the court must quash or modify the subpoena.
- Overbreadth or vagueness. Sweeping language like “all documents relating to any business conducted in the last ten years” is the kind of request courts regularly narrow.
The first four of these are mandatory grounds. When they apply, the court does not have discretion to let the subpoena stand as written.
The 100-Mile Rule on Where You Have to Produce
Under Rule 45(c), the place of production must be within 100 miles of where you live, work, or regularly conduct business in person.1Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 45 – Subpoena A company in Chicago served with a subpoena demanding production at a Miami law office can object on the location alone, no matter how reasonable the underlying request. The subpoena itself can be served on you anywhere in the United States, but where you have to deliver the documents is a separate question with a hard limit.
Withholding Privileged Documents the Right Way
If you withhold any documents based on privilege or work-product protection, you cannot just leave them out and stay quiet. Rule 45 requires you to expressly state the claim and describe the withheld documents in enough detail for the requesting party to evaluate whether the claim is valid, without revealing the protected content itself.1Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 45 – Subpoena
In practice, that means producing a privilege log: a list of each withheld item with its date, the people involved, the general subject matter, and the specific privilege claimed. Skip the log or do it badly and a court can rule that you waived the privilege on everything you tried to withhold. That mistake cannot be undone.
Protecting Confidential, Trade Secret, and Medical Records
Non-parties often hold information they are legally or ethically bound to protect. A subpoena doesn’t automatically override those obligations.
Protective Orders
Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(c), any person from whom discovery is sought, including a non-party, can ask the court for a protective order limiting how produced information is used or who can see it.2Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 26 – Duty to Disclose; General Provisions Governing Discovery A court can forbid disclosure, restrict who may view the documents, require trade secrets to be revealed only in a specified way, or order documents filed under seal. Before filing, you must certify that you tried in good faith to resolve the issue with the requesting party. You bear the burden of showing good cause: a specific, concrete injury, not a vague worry about disclosure.
Medical Records and HIPAA
Healthcare providers and insurance plans face an extra layer under federal privacy law. When a subpoena for medical records comes from an attorney or court clerk rather than a judge’s order, the provider cannot simply hand over the records. Under the HIPAA Privacy Rule, the provider must first receive evidence that either the patient was notified and given a chance to object, or the requesting party sought a qualified protective order from the court.3eCFR. 45 CFR 164.512 – Uses and Disclosures for Which an Authorization or Opportunity to Agree or Object Is Not Required Producing the records without that evidence violates federal law regardless of what the subpoena says.4HHS.gov. Court Orders and Subpoenas A subpoena backed by an actual court order signed by a judge is treated differently, and the provider may disclose what the order describes without the additional notice step.
Who Pays for Your Time and Expenses
Responding costs real money, and the rules offer less reimbursement than most recipients expect.
The issuing attorney must take reasonable steps to avoid imposing undue burden or expense on you. A court can sanction an attorney who fails to do so, including ordering payment of your lost earnings and reasonable attorney’s fees.1Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 45 – Subpoena This mostly deters extreme overreach. It does not mean the requesting party automatically pays for routine compliance.
When a non-party objects and the court orders compliance anyway, the order must protect the non-party from “significant expense.” Courts typically require the requesting party to cover enough of the costs to bring your remaining expense down to a non-significant level. For large electronic productions that need review software or outside vendors, this cost-shifting matters. You can also push back on requests for electronically stored information from sources that aren’t reasonably accessible due to undue burden or cost. If the requesting party wants data from legacy backup tapes or obsolete systems, they bear the burden of showing good cause, and a court can require them to pay for it.1Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 45 – Subpoena
If a subpoena requires you to attend in person, you are entitled to a $40 per-day attendance fee plus mileage at the rate the General Services Administration sets for federal employee travel.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC 1821 – Per Diem and Mileage Generally; Subsistence Tolls, taxi fares, and parking are also reimbursable, and overnight stays carry a subsistence allowance capped at the federal per diem for that area. These fees come nowhere near the actual cost of a lost workday. They are the statutory minimum. State courts set their own schedules.
What Happens If You Just Ignore It
If you serve a written objection, the requesting party’s next step is usually a motion asking the court to compel production. The court will then evaluate your objections and either sustain them, overrule them, or narrow the subpoena. Any order compelling production must still protect you from significant expense.1Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 45 – Subpoena A judge is now involved, and the process is adversarial.
If you neither comply nor object, or if a court orders production and you still refuse, the requesting party can ask the court to hold you in contempt. Contempt is a judicial finding that you deliberately disobeyed a court order. A judge can impose monetary sanctions, usually covering the attorney’s fees and costs the requesting party spent enforcing the subpoena. In extreme cases a court can issue a warrant for the arrest of an individual who refuses to comply.
The practical distinction is simple. If you timely object or move to quash, you are using the legal process, and a court cannot hold you in contempt for that. Contempt comes into play when you do nothing, or when you defy a court order after losing a challenge. Engaging with the subpoena protects you. Silence does not.