Powers v. Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
- Lorna Schofield
- 1:20-cv-02625
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Powers v. Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Judge Schofield allowed limited discovery so the parties could address disputed admission responses.
Powers and the defendants were affected by the order concerning the sufficiency of responses to requests for admission about an ablation machine and related medical-record information.
What happened
In Powers v. Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, the plaintiff challenged the defendants’ responses to requests asking about information recorded by an ablation machine and documented in medical records.
The plaintiff argued that the defendants used improper general and vague objections and failed to admit or deny several requests. The defendants had served their responses after the fact-discovery deadline, leaving the plaintiff no timely opportunity to ask the court to resolve the dispute before discovery closed.
Judge Lorna G. Schofield permitted limited fact discovery to address the dispute. She directed the parties to meet and confer, seek clarification where needed, and jointly report any remaining disagreements to the court by December 23, 2020.
The detailed version
- Powers v. Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center · No. 1:20-cv-02625
- Lorna Schofield
- Dec. 21, 2020
Background
The plaintiff served requests for admissions concerning an ablation machine and information collected by or exported from that machine. In a November 16, 2020, order, the court had directed the plaintiff to limit those requests to ten requests without subparts. The plaintiff withdrew earlier requests and served narrowed requests, including Requests 37–44 and 54–55.
The defendants served responses on December 15, 2020, after fact discovery had closed on November 25, 2020. The plaintiff challenged the defendants’ responses to Requests 37, 38, 41, 42, and 55. The challenged requests concerned whether the machine captured a Procedure History Report or System Log, whether a report was exportable, and whether all procedure-related data was documented in medical records.
Parties’ Positions
The plaintiff argued that the defendants’ general objections were improper because they were not specific to individual requests. The plaintiff also argued that objections describing terms such as “captured” and “all the data related to the procedure” as vague or ambiguous were unsupported. The plaintiff further argued that the defendants had stated they made a reasonable inquiry and had enough information to respond, but still failed to admit or deny the requests.
The opinion text contains the plaintiff’s request that the court disregard the objections and order responses. The court’s order does not state that it adopted those arguments or order the defendants to provide particular admissions responses.
Court’s Action
Because the defendants served their responses after the fact-discovery deadline, the plaintiff had not had a timely opportunity to seek court intervention. The court therefore permitted limited fact discovery for the purpose of resolving the dispute.
Judge Lorna G. Schofield directed the parties to meet and confer by December 23, 2020. When necessary, the defendants were to seek clarification from the plaintiff about terms they considered vague or ambiguous. The parties were also directed to file a joint letter by that date describing the result of their discussions and any remaining disputes.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.