Federal Judiciary

CPLR 3126 Reversals from 2003 to 2005

By Jason Boog
jasonboog@judicialstudies.com
Posted 10-1-2008

 
As reported in this week's feature, CPLR 3126 grant judges a number of powers to enforce discovery demands. Most dramatically, it allows jurists to dismiss a case if any party “refuses to obey an order for disclosure or willfully fails to disclose information which the court finds ought to have been disclosed.”

In fact, application of the statute’s ultimate sanction is quite rare. While it is impossible to measure exactly how many times the statute has been used in unpublished cases, reviews of it can be tracked at the appellate level.

Statewide, Judicial Reports counted 40 appeals of such dismissals during the last five years. Of those, the judges were affirmed 23 times and reversed 17 times. Here are links to eleven CPLR 3126 Reversals in New York City.

 
New York County
Weissman v 20 E. 9th St. Corp. (2008)

Queens County
Myung Sum Suh v. Jung Ja Kim (2008)
Joe DeMartino Mason Contrs. & Sons, Inc. v. Main Plaza Realty (2007)
Kuzmin v. Visiting Nurse Serv. of N. Y. (2005)
Torres v. Lowinger (2004)

 
Kings County
34-35th Corp. v. 1-10 Indus. Assoc., LLC (2007)
Goldstein v. Kingsbrook Jewish Med. Ctr. (2007)
Manko v. Lenox Hill Hosp. (2007)
Piche v. Greenpoint Sav. Bank (2005)
Ave. C Constr., Inc. v. Gassner (2003) 

 
Bronx County
Cespedes v. Mike & Jac Trucking Corp (2003)

Full post as published by Judicial Reports on September 30, 2008 (boomark / email).