Lee v. Karaoke City
- Paul Engelmayer
- 1:18-cv-03895
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Lee v. Karaoke City, Magistrate Judge Aaron denied Lee’s request for owners’ names, finding it untimely and irrelevant to his claims.
Beom Su Lee and the defendants in the action, including Karaoke City et al.
What happened
In Lee v. Karaoke City, Beom Su Lee asked the court to require the defendants to provide the names of their owners. The defendants responded that discovery had closed, Lee had not requested the information during discovery, and the owners’ names were not relevant to his claims.
The court denied Lee’s request. It explained that discovery had closed, that the defendants had already provided information about their legal entities, and that this was different from identifying individual owners. The court also said that if Lee later won, he could seek information about enforcing the judgment at the proper time.
Magistrate Judge Stewart D. Aaron also set deadlines for Lee’s anticipated summary-judgment motion and the defendants’ opposition and cross-motion. Lee’s motion was due August 14, 2020, and the remaining briefing deadlines ran through October 2, 2020.
The detailed version
- Lee v. Karaoke City · No. 1:18-cv-03895
- Paul Engelmayer
- Aug. 5, 2020
Background
The court considered Beom Su Lee’s August 1, 2020 letter asking it to compel the defendants to provide the names of the defendants’ owners. The defendants argued that Lee had not sought the owners’ names during the discovery period, which had closed, and that the information was not relevant to Lee’s claims.
Discovery had closed on December 31, 2019, except for a limited period allowing the defendants to seek documents from Korea. After the court denied the defendants’ request for another discovery extension, it ordered them to provide Lee with information about the names of the defendants’ legal entities. The defendants provided that information on July 21, 2020. The court explained that the names of the legal entities were separate from the names of individual owners.
Ruling
The court denied Lee’s request. It found the request untimely because discovery had closed and agreed that the individual owners’ names were not relevant to the claims at issue. The court added that, if Lee was seeking the information in anticipation of enforcing a future judgment against the individual owners, that discovery was not warranted at that stage. If Lee succeeded, he could pursue post-judgment discovery at an appropriate time.
Other Order
The court ordered Lee to file his anticipated motion for summary judgment by August 14, 2020. The defendants’ opposition and anticipated cross-motion were due September 4, 2020; Lee’s reply and opposition to the cross-motion were due September 18, 2020; and the defendants’ reply was due October 2, 2020. Magistrate Judge Stewart D. Aaron signed the order.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.