Samuels v. City of New York

Background

On November 14, 2025, Magistrate Judge Barbara Moses granted in part the City of New York’s motion to preclude expert testimony from Dr. Louis Rose, one of Samuels’s treating physicians. The court ruled that Dr. Rose could not testify as an expert witness, but could testify as a fact witness. In that role, he could give opinions about Samuels’s condition, diagnosis, treatment, prognosis, and causation if those opinions were based on his own observations during her treatment and were formed during that treatment.

The earlier order also required Samuels to produce medical records from January 1, 2016, to the present, including records concerning her hip-replacement surgery and postsurgical rehabilitation; correspondence between her or her attorney and Dr. Rose; and specified deposition and litigation materials from her medical-malpractice case against the surgeon to whom Dr. Rose referred her. The materials were due by December 5, 2025. If the medical records were not in Samuels’s possession, custody, or control, she was required to provide the City with releases complying with the federal medical-privacy law known as HIPAA within one week.

Samuels moved to stay, or temporarily pause, the November 14 order while the district judge considered an objection she intended to file under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 72(a).

Reasoning

The court identified two key factors for a stay pending an objection: whether Samuels was likely to succeed on the objection and whether she was likely to suffer irreparable injury, meaning harm that could not be adequately repaired later. Judge Moses found that Samuels’s two-sentence motion made no showing on either factor and did not identify the grounds for her planned objection.

The court also noted that Samuels had previously represented that Dr. Rose’s opinions would be based on his own examinations and treatment of her, not on records from other medical providers. Her counsel had also represented that he had no problem providing releases for other medical records if the court required them. Based on those representations, the court stated that it was difficult to understand what Samuels objected to or why she believed a stay was justified.

Finally, the court explained that Samuels’s immediate obligations involved producing her complete medical records, or providing compliant releases for records not within her control, and producing relevant materials from her earlier malpractice case. The November 14 order did not prevent her from later contesting the admissibility of those records for summary judgment or trial.

Ruling

Judge Barbara Moses denied Samuels’s motion for a stay pending resolution of her planned objection. The Clerk of Court was directed to close the motion at docket entry 128. The opinion did not state that the earlier order was vacated or otherwise changed.