Sughrim v. State of New York
- Ronnie Abrams
- 1:19-cv-07977
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 4
In Sughrim v. State of New York, Judge Abrams ordered the parties to negotiate over disputed religious-belief discovery and extended New York’s response deadline.
The plaintiffs and the State of New York and other defendants involved in the discovery dispute; the order required them to confer, and it extended the defendants’ reply deadline.
What happened
In Sughrim v. State of New York, the plaintiffs challenged New York officials’ decisions to discipline them for wearing beards for religious reasons while allowing other officers to wear beards for secular reasons.
The plaintiffs opposed the State’s requests for all religious texts, financial-contribution records, religious correspondence, social-media information, and admissions about Islamic teachings. They argued that the requests were overly broad, irrelevant, harassing, and infringed their First Amendment rights. They offered to produce narrower categories of records.
Judge Ronnie Abrams ordered the parties to meet and negotiate in good faith about the plaintiffs’ proposal, directed them to review a cited discovery decision concerning the requests for admission, and extended the deadline for the defendants’ reply to July 31, 2020. The court did not resolve the discovery dispute in this text.
The detailed version
- Sughrim v. State of New York · No. 1:19-cv-07977
- Ronnie Abrams
- July 25, 2020
Background
The plaintiffs’ counsel submitted a letter opposing discovery demands by the State of New York and other defendants. The letter states that the lawsuit concerns state officials’ decisions to discipline the plaintiffs for wearing beards for religious reasons while allowing other officers to wear beards for secular reasons. It also states that the defendants later granted the plaintiffs religious accommodations in response to the lawsuit.
Discovery dispute
The defendants sought copies of all of the plaintiffs’ religious texts, records of all financial contributions to religious organizations, and all correspondence concerning the plaintiffs’ religious beliefs. They also sought admissions that wearing facial hair is not one of the five pillars of Islam, that certain Islamic sources do not specify the required length of facial hair, and that Islamic teachings contain no universal requirement that Muslim men wear facial hair.
The plaintiffs argued that these requests were overbroad and irrelevant because the State had not considered the requested information when it denied their accommodation requests or disciplined them. They also argued that the requests implicated First Amendment rights concerning religious exercise and association, and that the requests for admission were unclear, philosophical, and unrelated to the issues in the case. The plaintiffs proposed producing narrower information, including publication details for religious texts they possessed and certain statements and photographs posted on social-media accounts they controlled during the preceding five years.
Court’s action
The endorsement did not grant or deny the requested discovery. Instead, Judge Ronnie Abrams ordered the parties to meet and confer in a good-faith effort to reach a compromise regarding the plaintiffs’ proposal. For the third item in the letter—the requests for admission—the court directed the parties to review the court’s opinion and order in Republic of Turkey v. Christie’s, Inc., 326 F.R.D. 394 (S.D.N.Y. 2018). The court extended the defendants’ deadline to reply until July 31, 2020 and directed them to advise the court about any remaining issues. The text therefore reflects a procedural case-management order, not a final ruling on the parties’ First Amendment or discovery arguments.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.