Davis v. City of New York
Davis v. City of New York
Opinion of the Court
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
After the close of fact discovery and as they are preparing their summary judgment briefs, the parties have presented the Court with the latest in a long line of discovery disputes.
On May 11, 2012, plaintiffs asked the Court to order production of the NYPD Housing Bureau’s Reports of Self-Initiated Cases (“Reports”), which are summaries of investigations conducted by Integrity Control Officers (“ICOs”) into police misconduct.
In order to resolve the dispute, I examined two of the Reports in camera. I marked the portions of Reports that related to the claims in this lawsuit and ordered the City to turn them over to plaintiffs, along with similar material from the other Reports.
Previously, on December 21, 2011, I orally denied plaintiffs’ request to depose an ICO because I determined that other depositions of NYPD officials had already provided plaintiffs with sufficient information about the ICOs’ responsibilities and that “it is not entirely clear that the ICOs’ functions ... have to do with this lawsuit .... [T]hese people don’t investigate unlawful stops or arrests because that goes to IAB and CCRB.”
It is indeed true that plaintiffs have obtained significant documentary and testimonial evidence regarding the ICOs. Given that fact discovery was scheduled to end long ago, a case can be made that an additional deposition would be “unreasonably cumulative or duplicative” and that “the burden or expense of the proposed discovery outweighs its likely benefit.”
According to the City, the Reports it produced after my in camera review contain information about 71 investigations, over a five year period, addressing complaints filed with the CCRB, the completion of UF-250 forms describing stops and frisks, the execution of vertical patrols, and officers’ failure to comply with enforcement activity performance standards.
These Reports should have been produced (in redacted form to include only relevant information) at the beginning of discovery in 2010. Had they been produced, plaintiffs could have sought an ICO deposition long ago and, if faced with the City’s resistence, could have shown the Reports to the Court. Instead, I denied plaintiffs’ request for the deposition in part because neither they nor I had complete information about the scope of the ICOs’ role.
The City’s representations to the Court in its May 14 letter were false. It is not true that Reports containing information regarding the supervision and discipline of officers for unlawful stops and arrests “do not exist” or that the ICO oversight relates only to “conduct that has nothing to do with the claims asserted in this lawsuit.”
Because the Reports should have been produced long ago, because the City has
SO ORDERED.
. See 5/11/12 Letter from Johnathan Smith (Plaintiffs’ Counsel) to Court ("May 11 Letter”).
. Id. at 1.
. 5/14/12 Letter from Brenda Cooke (Counsel to City) to Court (“May 14 Letter”) at 1.
. Id. at 2.
. Id.
. Id.
. See 5/24/12 Email from Court to Parties.
. 12/21/11 Conference Tr. at 9:14-17.
. 12/19/11 Letter from Tonya Jenerette (Counsel to City) to Court.
. 6/8/12 Letter from Jin Hee Lee (Plaintiffs’ Counsel) to Court ("June 8 Letter”) at 1.
. 6/11/12 Letter from Brenda Cooke (Counsel to City) to Court ("June 11 Letter”) at 2.
. Fed.R.Civ.P. 26(b)(2)(C).
. See June 11 Letter at 1.
. The City's December 19 statement that "most of the ICOs' functions have nothing to do with the issues in this lawsuit” was technically correct. But it is now clear that a not-insignificant portion of the ICOs' functions are relevant to plaintiffs’ allegations.
. May 14 Letter at 1-2.
. Deposition of Chief Delatorre at 479.
. Additionally, the City is ordered to provide plaintiffs with the total number of cases listed in each Report. Plaintiffs convincingly explain why this '‘denominator" information is relevant. If it is easier to do so, defendants may simply inform plaintiffs of these numbers without providing newly-redacted versions of the Reports.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Kelton DAVIS, individually and on behalf of a class of all others similarly situated v. The CITY OF NEW YORK and New York City Housing Authority
- Status
- Published