Trustees of the New York City District Council of Carpenters Pension Fund v…

Background

Defendants Showtime on the Piers, LLC and Charles Newman filed a letter motion asking the court to stay, or pause, discovery under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(c) while defendants’ motion to dismiss was pending. The motion to dismiss had been fully briefed. Plaintiffs had served discovery demands, and the case-management plan required fact discovery to be completed by March 27, 2020, and expert discovery by May 11, 2020.

Plaintiffs opposed the discovery stay. According to defendants’ letter, plaintiffs argued that the motion to dismiss was meritless and that the court had set the discovery schedule at the initial conference despite defendants’ stated intention to seek dismissal of at least some claims.

Defendants’ arguments

Defendants argued that good cause supported a stay because their motion to dismiss could dispose of all or part of the case. The letter described arguments that the fiduciary-duty claim against Newman was barred by the three-year limitations period for that claim, that two plaintiff entities—the New York City Carpenters Relief and Charity Fund and The New York City and Vicinity Carpenters Labor-Management Corporation—lacked standing or failed to state claims under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act and the Labor Management Relations Act, and that judicial estoppel barred plaintiffs’ theory concerning when Showtime became bound by a collective bargaining agreement.

Defendants also argued that plaintiffs sought extensive discovery, including business, financial, payroll, contract, communications, and electronically stored information. They contended that proceeding with that discovery before the court ruled on the motion to dismiss could waste resources or produce discovery that would become unnecessary or narrower.

Ruling

The court’s handwritten disposition stated: “GRANTED in part.” Discovery on plaintiffs’ fiduciary-duty claim against Newman was stayed pending a further order from the court. Discovery concerning all other claims was required to proceed under the existing case-management plan, identified as Docket Entry 17.

Judge Valerie E. Caproni did not decide defendants’ motion to dismiss in this order. The provided text does not include a separate explanation of the court’s reasons for granting the discovery request in part.