Discovery as to Opponents Assets Denied by Appellate Court as Overbroad
January 5, 2010
NAME REDACTED v. Channing (Sup. Ct. N.Y. Cty. 12/18/02)
Tenant’s motion to compel landlord to answer it’s many discovery requests (which included both a request for documents as well as a request for responses to multiple questions posed to plaintiff landlord at his deposition which landlord’s counsel objected to and directed him not to answer) largely denied – including financial documents and information (such as operating statements, profit and loss statements, subscription agreements, tax returns, K- 1s, and partnership agreements), in connection with landlord’s interests/investments in assorted real estate partnerships and a carpet business that have nothing to do with the subject lawsuit. Such financial requests were too far removed from the facts in controversy to be not material or necessary. Neither were landlord’s income tax returns discoverable. Moreover, other of tenant’s requests were protected by the attorney-client privilege and/or attorney work product exclusion. Finally, tenant’s request that landlord be prospectively directed to answer all questions at his continued deposition, except as to privileged matters, was denied. Link to Full Text of Decision
NAME REDACTED v. Channing
2002 N.Y. Slip Op. 04642, (App. Div. 1st Dept. 6/6/02)
Where landlord sued to evict rent-stabilized tenant for refusing to sign a lease and for using the basement level of his multi-floor apartment as sleeping quarters in violation of the building’s certificate of occupancy, no claim for retaliatory eviction will lie based on the theory that landlord was trying to make tenant sign a lease that gave him fewer rights than his 1974 lease when the Appellate Division found that landlord didn’t even know there was a 1974 lease and tenant’s use of the basement as sleeping quarters was against the law. Tenant couldn’t claim the landlord was trying to evict him after tenant sought to enforce his legal rights, and tenant’s retaliatory eviction claim was properly dismissed. Link to Full Text of Decision
