Garcia v. Progressive Maintenance LLC

Background

The opinion consists of a letter from the plaintiffs’ attorneys addressing discovery disputes and the court’s brief order responding to that letter. The plaintiffs described the case as a class action involving superintendents who allegedly were required to remain available and were contacted by the defendants by email and text message at all hours. The letter also referred to a Fair Labor Standards Act collective action and claims under the New York Labor Law.

The plaintiffs stated that the parties had exchanged written discovery responses but had not taken depositions. They said they had sent deposition notices, but the defendants had refused to provide deposition dates. The defendants’ stated position was that depositions should not be scheduled until the written-discovery issues were resolved.

Discovery requests

The plaintiffs asked the court to order the defendants to address numerous discovery issues, including:

- providing specific objections to document requests and stating whether responsive documents had been withheld; - producing documents covering the six-year period the plaintiffs associated with the New York Labor Law, rather than limiting production to three years; - conducting an electronic search for emails and text messages using proposed search terms and identifying the people whose records would be searched; - producing documents responsive to specified requests, including information about potential class members, the ownership of corporate defendants, the duties of individual defendants, communications with named plaintiffs, and document-preservation practices; and - providing fuller answers to two interrogatories concerning people with relevant information and the location of relevant documents.

The plaintiffs also asked the court to order the defendants to provide documents they had said they would produce and to state when that production would occur. They requested an exception to the court’s five-page limit for discovery-deficiency letters because the letter addressed class-action issues and multiple discovery requests.

Court’s ruling

The court stated: “Application denied.” Judge Gorenstein also stated that compliance with paragraph 2.A of the court’s Individual Practices was mandatory. He directed counsel to telephone each other promptly and to confer at length and in good faith in an effort to resolve each discovery dispute. The order further stated that, if counsel failed to comply with the requirement to respond within one business day to a request to confer, that failure could be the subject of a separate application.

The order did not decide whether the plaintiffs were entitled to any particular discovery, whether the defendants’ objections were valid, whether a class or collective action should be certified, or whether the wage claims had merit.