AFTER PLAINTIFF’S POST-NOTE DEPOSITION SUBPOENA FOR THE NONPARTY WITNESS WAS QUASHED, PLAINTIFF OBTAINED A VOLUNTARY STATEMENT FROM THE NONPARTY WITNESS; OBTAINING THE STATEMENT WAS A PROPER METHOD OF “INFORMAL DISCOVERY” (FIRST DEPT).

The First Department, reversing (modifying) Supreme Court, determined plaintiff properly conducted “informal discovery” by obtaining a voluntary statement from a nonparty witness after plaintiff’s post-note deposition subpoena for the witness was quashed:

Supreme Court granted defendant’s motion to quash the untimely, post-note deposition subpoena plaintiff served on nonparty witness Harris-Aikens, and to preclude plaintiff from “examining or otherwise taking any sworn testimony from” Harris-Aikens (the December Order), and suspended disclosure pursuant to CPLR 3103(b). …

… [T]he Harris-Aikens witness statement did not constitute “disclosure of the particular matter in dispute” prohibited by CPLR 3103(b). The statement was not an examination or other sworn testimony explicitly prohibited by the December Order, and was not otherwise an enumerated “disclosure device” under CPLR 3102(a) … . Rather, obtaining the witness statement was plaintiff’s proper exercise of ex parte, informal discovery, which the Court of Appeals has long recognized as a permissible and invaluable avenue by which litigants prepare for trial … . Everett v Equinox Holdings, Inc., 2024 NY Slip Op 02276, First Dept 4-30-24

Practice Point: Obtaining a voluntary statement from a nonparty witness here did not violate the court order quashing a deposition subpoena for the same witness. The voluntary statement was a proper form of “informal discovery.”