Koo v. Hana Mart NY Corp

Background

Defendants asked the court for a pre-motion conference concerning a discovery dispute. The dispute involved three requests for admissions served by the plaintiff, one directed to each defendant. The requests asked defendants to admit that, by specified dates, the plaintiff was an “eligible employee” under the Family and Medical Leave Act and that each defendant was an “employer” under that statute.

Defendants argued that the requests improperly sought legal conclusions, including conclusions about whether the defendants were a “single, integrated enterprise.” Defendants said that issue could affect whether the plaintiff met the statute’s employee-hour requirement and whether an entity met the employee-number requirement. The plaintiff argued that the requests sought application of the law to facts rather than improper legal conclusions.

Defendants also asked that the pre-motion conference letter serve as their response to the requests and that the requests not be treated as admitted while the dispute was pending.

Ruling

The court denied the application. It stated that defendants had not complied with Rule 2(C)(11) of the court’s Individual Rules of Practice in Civil Cases. That rule requires counsel seeking a pre-motion conference about discovery to submit one jointly composed letter describing the discovery disputes.

The order did not decide whether the requests for admissions were legally proper, whether the defendants were a single integrated enterprise, or whether the parties were covered by the Family and Medical Leave Act. Judge Gregory H. Woods entered the order on December 3, 2020.