Malzberg v. New York University

Background

Malzberg brought claims under the Americans with Disabilities Act and the New York City Human Rights Law, alleging that NYU failed to provide a reasonable accommodation for his disabilities and that this resulted in his constructive discharge. The opinion states that Malzberg worked as a physician’s assistant at NYU Langone Medical Center until NYU terminated his employment on April 1, 2019. The opinion recounts allegations involving chronic back pain, eye conditions, pressure to work full-time in Interventional Radiology, and the withdrawal of another employment offer.

The opinion states that these allegations came from the complaint and were treated as true for purposes of deciding the discovery motion. Malzberg moved under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37(a)(3) to compel production of documents. After discussions with NYU, he narrowed his request to three categories: disability-discrimination complaints or charges from 2014 onward involving certain NYU units or named individuals; accommodation requests from employees of those units; and responses to those requests. NYU proposed producing complaints or charges involving Dan Alexa, Dr. Leon Rybak, and Dr. Akhilesh Sista dating from August 2017.

Discovery standards

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b)(1) permits discovery of nonprivileged information that is relevant to a claim or defense and proportional to the case’s needs. The court explained that relevance is broad and that evidence of similar employment-related conduct may help show discriminatory intent. It also explained that discovery is often limited to the plaintiff’s supervisors and work division, particularly when the allegations do not concern a company-wide pattern. Even relevant discovery must be proportional, considering issues such as burden and the importance of the information.

Court’s analysis

The court found relevant and discoverable complaints or charges alleging disability discrimination by any member of NYU Langone’s Interventional Radiology Department, filed from January 1, 2017 through the present. It also found appropriate the production of reasonable-accommodation requests made by current or former employees of that department, and responses to those requests, over the same period.

The court rejected NYU’s argument that discovery should be limited to complaints involving Alexa, Rybak, and Sista. The court stated that human-resources representatives played an important role in Malzberg’s allegations and that his complaint attributed the alleged conduct to NYU rather than only to those three individuals. The court found no sufficient showing that discovery concerning NYU’s other departments was relevant because the complaint focused almost entirely on Malzberg’s experience in Interventional Radiology.

The court separately allowed discovery from January 1, 2014 through the present for complaints or charges that specifically contained allegations against Sista, Rybak, and/or Alexa. The court found those records highly relevant because the three individuals were directly implicated by Malzberg’s allegations and the records were readily accessible to NYU. The court also found that NYU had not shown that searching for those records would be excessively burdensome.

Disposition

The court GRANTS IN PART Malzberg’s motion to compel discovery. NYU was ordered to produce:

The opinion does not state a separate disposition using the word “denied” for the portions of the discovery request not included in this order.