Mason Tenders District Council of Greater New York v. Phase Construction Services, Inc.

318 F.R.D. 28, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 166395, 2016 WL 7031625
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. New York
DecidedNovember 30, 2016
Docket14 Civ. 6016 (ER)
StatusPublished
Cited by67 cases

This text of 318 F.R.D. 28 (Mason Tenders District Council of Greater New York v. Phase Construction Services, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Mason Tenders District Council of Greater New York v. Phase Construction Services, Inc., 318 F.R.D. 28, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 166395, 2016 WL 7031625 (S.D.N.Y. 2016).

Opinion

OPINION AND ORDER

Ramos, D.J.:

Mason Tenders District Council of Greater New York (the “Union”), Mason Tenders District Council Welfare Fund, Pension Fund, Annuity Fund, Training Fund, Health and Safety Fund (together, the “Funds”) and John Virga (all together, “Plaintiffs”) bring this action against Defendants Phase Construction Services, Inc. and SL Construction Group, Inc. alleging breach of contract and violations of the Taft-Hartley Act, and the [32]*32Employment Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (“ERISA”). Before the Court are Plaintiffs’ motion to amend the Complaint to include Salvatore LaBarca and Phase NY as defendants, and Plaintiffs’ motion to compel discovery.

For the reasons stated below, Plaintiffs’ motions are GRANTED.

I. Factual1 and Procedural Background

The Funds are labor-management trust funds established and maintained pursuant to various collective bargaining agreements (“CBA”). Complaint (“CompL”) (Doc. 1) ¶ 5. Pursuant to a CBA, employers contribute to the Funds, which in turn provide fringe benefits to employees. Id. Defendants SL Construction Group, Inc. (“SL”) and Phase Construction Services, Inc. (“Phase”) perform construction services in the greater New York area and maintain an office at 55 West 39th Street (the “39th Street office”). Id. at ¶¶ 8, 10, 12. Salvatore LaBarca is the president and chief executive officer of both Defendants. Id. at ¶¶ 9, 11. On November 8, 2005, the Union and SL entered into a CBA requiring SL to, among other things, remit “fringe benefit contributions” to the Funds and submit “dues checkoffs” and Political Action Committee contributions to the Union based on the number of hours of work performed by its Union employees. Id. at ¶ 14. The CBA also gave the Funds the right to audit SL’s books and records to determine if it was remitting the proper amount of fringe benefit contributions. Id. at ¶ 15. On August 1, 2014, Plaintiffs filed the instant action alleging, among other things, breach of the CBA. Plaintiffs brought suit against both SL and Phase claiming that they were “commonly owned and operated” and that Phase is jointly and severally liable because the corporations maintained “integrated operations” such that they are “alter egos and/or a single employer.” Id. at ¶ 13.

Within the first two months, the parties stipulated to three extensions for Defendants to submit an answer or otherwise respond. (Docs. 7-9) As a result, the Court directed Defendants to respond by October 6, 2014. Defendants filed an Answer on October 7, 2014. (Doc. 10) On December 10, 2014, the parties agreed to a Discovery Plan and Scheduling Order, providing, in pertinent part, that joinder of additional parties and any amendment to pleadings were to be filed by January 10, 2015; and that all discovery was to be completed by July 19, 2015.2 (Doc. 12)

Pursuant to the discovery schedule, Plaintiffs served Defendants with interrogatories and documents requests. Rex Whitehorn, Defendants’ counsel, advised Deke Bond, Plaintiffs’ counsel, that all of Defendants’ business records, including documents responsive to Plaintiffs’ requests, were located in Defendants’ warehouse in Deer Park, New York. Memorandum of Law in Support of Plaintiffs’ Motion to Compel and For Sanctions (“Pl. Compel Memo”) (Doc. 73), Ex. I (Affirmation of Deke Bond). On May 8, 2015, Bond went to the warehouse to inspect the documents and found “scores of boxes, each labeled with a company name and a year designation.” Id. Bond noted that the latest date appearing on the boxes that had Defendants’ name on the label (or some derivation thereof) was 2013. Id. On July 10, 2015, the parties requested an extension to complete discovery. The Court granted the request extending the discovery deadline until October 1, 2015. (Docs. 13, 14)

LaBarca’s deposition was held on October 1, 2015, the last day of discovery. In response to a question regarding the location of post-2013 SL and Phase documents, LaBarca testified that because he had various bookkeepers, his records were not “that good” and [33]*33that he had yet to file taxes for 2014. Nevertheless, LaBarca made assurances that his accountants were working on filing taxes for 2014 and that the underlying documents were “somewhere.” Pl. Compel Memo. Ex. M (LaBarca Deposition 47:18-25). LaBarca also identified additional individuals who possibly possessed relevant information, including Patricia LaBarca-Burton, LaBarca’s sister, and Patricia Dima, his accountant. At the status conference held on October 8, 2015, Plaintiffs’ counsel informed the Court about LaBarca’s deposition and requested an extension of the discovery deadline to depose the identified individuals and allow Defendants to produce documents from areas other than the warehouse.3 Defendants’ counsel joined in the extension request, stating that it, too, had additional individuals to depose and documents to produce. Consequently, the Court granted the parties a sixty-day extension to complete discovery until December 8, 2015.

Following the conference, on October 22, 2015, Plaintiffs sent a letter to Defendants highlighting LaBarca’s testimony about additional documents not stored in the warehouse, and requested that they “produce copies of all relevant, responsive documents from those locations that have not yet been searched.” PI. Compel. Memo. Ex. N. Plaintiffs also requested that Defendants comply with Plaintiffs’ demand for an audit of Defendants’ books and records for the time period after December 29, 2013, the end date for the period of the last audit. Plaintiffs added that they would seek Court intervention “if needed.” Id.

On November 18, 2015, Plaintiffs requested leave to file a motion to compel discovery, claiming that Defendants had refused to make their books and records available for inspection and audit by Plaintiffs and refused to produce documents located outside of the warehouse. (Doc. 17) On December 9, 2015, the Court held a status conference at which Defendants’ counsel represented that the 39th Street office had closed and that all the documents that had been stored in the office had been moved to the warehouse in Deer Park. Transcript of Dec. 9, 2015 Status Conference (Doc. 23) 10:7:17. The Court then directed the parties to file a joint case management plan by December 15, with all discovery to be completed no later than February 9, 2016.4 The Court also reserved judgment on the issue of the audit. One day after the deadline, on December 16, the parties filed a joint motion for an extension to file the case management plan until December 23, 2015, which the Court granted. (Docs. 21, 22)

On December 23, 2015, Plaintiffs informed the Court that the parties were unable to reach an agreement with respect to the case management plan and filed their own discovery plan.5 (Doc. 25) They also apprised the Court of the conduct by Defendants’ counsel that they claimed “impeded the progress” of a joint discovery plan, including the refusal to produce certain documents or to respond to Plaintiffs’ request for depositions, and asked the Court to order Defendants’ counsel to cooperate in arranging the depositions. Id. That same day, Defendants filed their proposed discovery plan agreeing to, in pertinent part, “produce all documents concerning SL and/or Phase which were not in the Deer Park warehouse at the time of Mr.

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318 F.R.D. 28, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 166395, 2016 WL 7031625, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mason-tenders-district-council-of-greater-new-york-v-phase-construction-nysd-2016.