Tardif v. City of New York

District Court, S.D. New York·Decided January 31, 2022·No. 1:13-cv-04056·Unknown

Opinion

Wy, PESTANA THE CITY OF NEW YORK LAW DEPARTMENT NEW YORK , NEW YORK 10007 January 28, 2022 By ECF Honorable Kimba M. Wood USDC SDNY United States District Judge DOCUMENT Southern District of New York ELECTRONICALLY FILED 500 Pearl Street DOC #: New York, New York 10007 DATE FILED: 1/31/2022 Re: Mary Tardif v. City of New York, et al., No. 13 Civ. 4056 (KMW) (KNF) Your Honor: MEMO ENDORSED We are Senior Counsels in the Office of Georgia M. Pestana, Corporation Counsel of the City of New York, and the attorneys assigned the defense in the above-referenced matter. In that capacity, we write to respectfully request that the Court compel plaintiff to respond to certain discovery in this matter. Specifically, plaintiff objects to producing information and documents regarding plaintiff's past use of and treatment for drugs and information and documents regarding her finances. As set forth below, these materials are relevant and discoverable for assessing and attacking plaintiff's current purported damages claim that she now suffers from a traumatic brain injury that manifested in November 2020 and was caused by an event in March 2013. I. Background Following many years of litigation, including a weeklong trial in November 2018, and an appeal, plaintiff now claims she suffers from a traumatic brain injury based on symptoms that began appearing in November 2020. After this matter was remanded, counsel for plaintiff announced that plaintiff believes that the sole cause of this injury is the incident underlying the one claim that survived the appeal, as opposed to the other incidents tried in this matter where plaintiff claimed she was thrown, pushed, slammed, or fell, and reported an impact to her upper- body or head. As a result of this alleged injury, plaintiff claims that her life has been significantly altered. She cannot work as much as she used to, there is a whole range of physical leisure activities she cannot do, she is sensitive to light and sound, she cannot walk more than a few blocks at a time, she suffers pain in her head, vision problems, stomach problems, and plaintiff has offered an expert opinion that these symptoms are permanent. On July 15, 2021, the Court granted plaintiff's request to reopen discovery on this new damages claim based on the premise that they were previously unaware of plaintiffs injury, and thus the need for discovery was unforeseeable in the original discovery period prior to trial. Pursuant to the Court’s July 26, 2021 order, defendant propounded discovery requests on plaintiff on September 27, 2021. Plaintiffs responses were received on October 27, 2021. Plaintiff refused to answer much of the requests, and after correspondence and conferrals, agreed to supplement her responses. Plaintiff provided revised discovery responses on December 31, 2021. Although defendant had concerns as to whether these responses were complete, defendants determined to take plaintiff's deposition and use the testimony to better focus on what further discovery is

needed. Defendant deposed plaintiff on January 18, 2022, and ordered the transcript expedited. On January 21, 2022, defendant followed up with plaintiff in writing about additional discovery defendant needs to defend against the damages claim. Over the course of this week, the parties have been able to resolve much of the discovery disputes. The parties met and conferred by telephone on January 27, 2022. The parties were unable to resolve two issues.

Specifically, Interrogatory Number 17 of defendant’s discovery requests called for plaintiff to identify all her bank accounts, accounts she has an interest, credit accounts, loan agreements. (See Excerpts, Plaintiff’s Further Responses to Defendant’s Post-Appeal Interrogatories and Document Requests, dated December 31, 2021, annexed hereto as Exhibit “A” (“Ex. A”), at p. 7). In addition, Document Request 34 called for plaintiff’s credit card receipts from 2010 to present, and Document Request Number 35 requested records from any account held by plaintiff with any bank or financial institution from 2010 to present. (Ex. A at p. 17-18). Plaintiff responded to these three requests with a number of form objections and that the request is beyond the scope of the Court’s July 15, 2021 order. In the January 27, 2022 telephone conferral, plaintiff refused to provide any substantive response. Defendants now seek to compel information and documents for the period from November 1, 2018 to present.

Second, defendant propounded Document Request Number 43 calling for any records concerning plaintiff’s drug use. (Ex. A at p. 20). Plaintiff responded in the same manner as described above, but added additional objections based on a number of inapplicable privileges and HIPAA.

II. Plaintiff Should Provide the Information and Documents Requested by Defendants

A) Financial, Banking, Credit Information and Documents

As noted above, plaintiff is claiming symptoms related to traumatic brain injury in November 2020. Further, she claims that as a result of her condition, she has been deprived of a number of life’s pursuits, and indicates she is suffering from a number of disabilities. Defendant is entitled to discovery on plaintiff’s financial circumstances and activity from November 2018 to present because this discovery is reasonably expected to show what activities plaintiff was engaged in during the relevant period when she claims disability, and would offer a comparison to her activities in the two years between her last opportunity to testify about her damages and the start of her symptoms. This will enable defendant to assess plaintiff’s claim that she has a legitimate neurological injury; whether the symptoms she report has the effect on her life in the way she claims; whether the severity of plaintiff’s symptoms are affected by the activities she does engage in; and to argue against the overall credibility of plaintiff’s damages claims. Abeyta v. City of New York, Docket No. 12 Civ. 5623 (KBF), Order at Docket Entry No. 26, at p. 2 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 21, 2013) (annexed hereto as Exhibit “B”).

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