Burgess v. City of New York
- Denise Cote
- 1:24-cv-03501
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Burgess v. City of New York, defendants asked to separate municipal-liability discovery; Judge Cote’s February 7 filing contains no ruling.
The plaintiff, the City of New York, and the individual defendants are affected by the requested division and pause of municipal-liability discovery. The text does not state whether the court granted or denied that request.
What happened
In Burgess v. City of New York, the defendants asked the court to separate discovery about the City’s municipal-liability claim from discovery about the individual officers. They also asked the court to pause the municipal-liability discovery until the individual defendants’ liability was decided. Plaintiff opposed the request.
The defendants argued that separate discovery would save time and money because the municipal-liability claim might become unnecessary if the individual defendants won on a later motion for summary judgment. They pointed to the plaintiff’s arrest, hospitalization, delayed arraignment, and the discovery completed so far. They also argued that the available evidence did not show a City policy causing the alleged delay.
The provided February 7, 2025 filing does not state that Judge Denise L. Cote granted or denied the request. It is a letter presenting the defendants’ position, so no court ruling or outcome appears in the text.
The detailed version
- Burgess v. City of New York · No. 1:24-cv-03501
- Denise Cote
- Feb. 7, 2025
Nature of the filing
The provided text is a letter from counsel for the City of New York and the individual defendants, not a judicial opinion or order. The defendants asked Judge Denise L. Cote to bifurcate discovery—that is, to divide discovery into separate stages—and to stay, or pause, discovery concerning the plaintiff’s municipal-liability claim against the City. The request cited Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 26(c) and 42(b). Plaintiff opposed the request.
Background described by the defendants
The letter states that the plaintiff asserted claims including excessive force, excessive delay, liability under the Americans with Disabilities Act, and municipal liability arising from an arrest and hospitalization from June 23 through June 28, 2023. The letter says that the plaintiff, one plaintiff’s witness, and two defendants had been deposed, and that document discovery concerning the underlying claims was continuing.
The defendants’ account states that the plaintiff was arrested for assaulting a 71-year-old man, did not have insulin with her, experienced health complications while in custody, and was taken to a hospital. According to the letter, she spent two days in intensive care and three more days in the hospital before a remote arraignment. The letter also describes the plaintiff’s testimony that officers generally allowed her to be uncuffed for showering and using the restroom, permitted a phone call, and allowed nursing staff to pass along messages from her mother. These facts are presented as the defendants’ account and arguments.
Arguments for separating discovery
The defendants argued that the municipal-liability claim was derivative of the individual defendants’ liability and that discovery on the two subjects would be substantially different. They contended that the individual-liability discovery could be completed quickly, while the plaintiff’s proposed municipal-liability discovery would involve broad requests concerning training, policies, procedures, and directives for hospitalized arrestees, as well as a possible deposition of a witness designated under Rule 30(b)(6).
The defendants further argued that discovery had not produced evidence of a New York City Police Department policy of intentionally, unlawfully, or unreasonably delaying arraignments for hospitalized arrestees with insulin-related complications. They also asserted that the police department did not control when the criminal court scheduled the plaintiff’s virtual arraignment and that the arrest paperwork had been given to the Kings County District Attorney’s Office within 24 hours. The defendants characterized any delay as based on a health emergency and said they expected to seek summary judgment on the underlying claims.
Disposition
The text does not show a ruling by Judge Cote. It does not say that the request to bifurcate discovery was granted, denied, or otherwise resolved. Accordingly, the filing establishes only that the defendants made the request and that plaintiff opposed it; the court’s disposition is unclear from the provided text.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.