PLAINTIFF’S DISCOVERY REQUESTS IN THIS CHILD VICTIM’S ACT ACTION ALLEGING SEXUAL ABUSE BY A CATHOLIC SCHOOL GYM TEACHER WERE PALPABLY IMPROPER (SECOND DEPT).

The Second Department, reversing Supreme Court, determined the plaintiff’s discovery requests in this Child Victim’s Act action against the Archdiocese of New York were palpably improper and should have been denied (the requests were not described in the decision). Plaintiff alleged sexual abuse by a gym teacher when he was a child in the 1960’s:

Notices for discovery and inspection and interrogatories are palpably improper if they are overbroad or burdensome, fail to specify with reasonable particularity many of the documents demanded, or seek irrelevant or confidential information (see CPLR 3120[2] …). Where the discovery demands are overbroad, the appropriate remedy is to vacate the entire demand rather than to prune it … . “The burden of serving a proper demand is upon counsel, and it is not for the courts to correct a palpably bad one” …

Here, the plaintiff’s discovery demand and interrogatories were palpably improper in that they were overbroad and burdensome, sought irrelevant or confidential information, or failed to specify with reasonable particularity many of the documents demanded … .Fox v Roman Catholic Archdiocese of N.Y., 2022 NY Slip Op 01148