Donna McCammon et al v. Surrey Propco LLC
- Vernon Broderick
- 1:25-cv-03292
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Donna McCammon v. Surrey Propco LLC, Judge Lehrburger denied as moot defendants’ request for class-certification discovery.
The ruling affected the defendants’ request to conduct limited discovery concerning the plaintiffs’ class-certification motion, including depositions, document requests, and related deadline extensions. The plaintiffs and the proposed class were also involved in the underlying class-certification dispute.
What happened
Donna McCammon and another named plaintiff sought certification of a class involving former Surrey Hotel employees. Defendants asked to conduct limited discovery before responding to the class-certification motion, including depositions of the named plaintiffs and document requests.
Defendants said discovery was needed because questions remained about the proposed class, the former employees’ collective bargaining agreement, medical-leave recall rights, and possible conflicts involving the Union and plaintiffs’ counsel. Plaintiffs agreed only to limited discovery and did not agree to the requested depositions.
In Donna McCammon v. Surrey Propco LLC, Judge Robert W. Lehrburger denied defendants’ discovery request as moot. The text provided does not explain why the request became moot or separately state whether any requested deadline extensions were granted.
The detailed version
- Donna McCammon et al v. Surrey Propco LLC · No. 1:25-cv-03292
- Vernon Broderick
- Oct. 14, 2025
Background
The plaintiffs filed a motion for class certification under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23. Defendants asked for permission to conduct limited discovery related to that motion. Specifically, defendants sought to depose the two named plaintiffs and serve a limited number of document requests. They also requested corresponding extensions of the class-certification and case-management deadlines. Alternatively, defendants requested three additional weeks to respond to the class-certification motion if discovery was denied.
The request was presented in a letter from defendants’ counsel after the parties could not agree on the scope of discovery. According to the letter, plaintiffs opposed depositions of the named plaintiffs, agreed only to very limited discovery, and apparently conditioned their consent on receiving their own merits-based discovery.
Issues discussed
The letter explains that pre-certification discovery may help the court evaluate whether Rule 23’s requirements are met. It identifies questions about whether the named plaintiffs could adequately represent the class, including possible conflicts between the plaintiffs, class counsel, the Union, and absent class members. Plaintiffs’ counsel also represented the Union, which had represented some Surrey Hotel employees before the hotel closed in March 2020.
The letter further identifies uncertainty about the applicable collective bargaining agreement, including provisions concerning employees on medical leave and recall rights. It notes that the proposed class definition changed between the state-court complaint, the amended complaint filed after removal, and the class-certification motion. The letter states that discovery was needed to determine the effect of the collective bargaining agreement and whether the proposed class matched the employees covered by the relevant ordinance.
Ruling
The order at the top of the provided text states that the request was denied as moot. The provided text does not specify what made the request moot, does not separately state the disposition of the requested deadline extensions, and does not include a fuller explanation of the court’s ruling. In Donna McCammon et al v. Surrey Propco LLC, Judge Robert W. Lehrburger therefore denied defendants’ request as moot, rather than ruling on the merits of class certification.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.