Torre v. Charter Communications, Inc.

Background

Roma Torre and other long-time reporters for New York One brought federal, state, and local claims against Charter Communications, Inc., doing business as Spectrum, alleging sex and age discrimination. During discovery—the evidence-gathering stage of the case—the plaintiffs issued a subpoena to Adam Leibner, an agent for Pat Kiernan, Annika Pergament, and Jamie Stelter, who were described as other NY1 on-air talent.

The subpoena sought all documents and communications related to the movants’ contracts with Charter, as well as documents and communications discussing the plaintiffs or the allegations in the complaint. The movants asked the court under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 45(d)(3)(B) to quash the subpoena, meaning to cancel it. The amended opinion states that it corrected an earlier opinion and superseded the court’s December 23, 2020 order.

Court’s Analysis

The court concluded that the movants had standing, meaning a sufficient legal interest to object, at least insofar as they sought to protect their own privacy and economic interests. The plaintiffs questioned whether the movants could object based on the subpoena’s cumulative nature. The court explained, however, that it independently had to limit discovery that was unreasonably cumulative or duplicative or that could be obtained from another source more conveniently, with less burden, or at lower cost.

The court identified three reasons to quash the subpoena:

1. The subpoena improperly targeted a non-party first. The plaintiffs sought a large universe of documents from Leibner, a non-party, even though the documents could and should be sought from Charter, which was a party to the case. The court found that the plaintiffs’ speculation that Charter might limit its electronic-discovery search did not justify looking first to a non-party.

2. The plaintiffs did not show sufficient relevance. To the extent Leibner had documents that Charter did not possess, the plaintiffs did not show whether or how those documents were relevant. The court stated that a non-party subpoena under Rule 45 remains subject to Rule 26(b)(1)’s requirement that discovery be relevant. Communications between Leibner and the movants about contract negotiations or the plaintiffs’ conduct had limited or no relevance to whether Charter denied the plaintiffs opportunities or retaliated against them, except insofar as the communications had been shared with Charter.

3. The plaintiffs’ need did not outweigh potential harm. On the record before it, the court found that the plaintiffs had not shown that their need for the documents outweighed the movants’ potential privacy and economic harms. The court also rejected the suggestion that a protective order would easily solve those concerns because the plaintiffs were competitors of the movants as journalists and media personalities, while Charter was the movants’ employer and contractual counterparty.

Ruling

Judge Jesse M. Furman granted the movants’ motion and quashed the Leibner Subpoena. The Clerk of Court was directed to terminate the motion docket entry, ECF No. 82.

The opinion states that the ruling was without prejudice to the plaintiffs serving a new subpoena that is appropriately tailored to the relevance and privacy concerns identified by the court, if they can show that Leibner is reasonably likely to possess discovery they were unable to obtain from Charter.