Wood v. Mutual Redevelopment Houses, Inc.
- Analisa Torres
- 1:14-cv-07535
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Wood v. Mutual Redevelopment Houses, Judge Torres denied plaintiffs’ motions to reopen discovery, seek sanctions, reinstate defendants, and amend their complaint.
Tzvee Wood and Andrea Malester, whose motions were denied; the previously dismissed defendants were not reinstated.
What happened
Wood v. Mutual Redevelopment Houses, Inc. concerns Tzvee Wood and Andrea Malester’s dispute over their application to purchase a Mitchell-Lama apartment. The plaintiffs represented themselves in the lawsuit.
The plaintiffs asked to reopen discovery, sought sanctions against defense counsel, asked to reinstate three previously dismissed defendants, and moved to amend their complaint. They argued that defense-counsel misconduct had deprived them of documents and depositions, and they sought sanctions for alleged failures to file certificates of service.
Judge Analisa Torres denied every motion. She ruled that discovery had been closed after the plaintiffs had sufficient time to pursue evidence, that the sanctions request was improperly included in another motion, that the request to reinstate defendants was untimely, and that the proposed amendment was barred by the earlier denials and undue delay.
The detailed version
- Wood v. Mutual Redevelopment Houses, Inc. · No. 1:14-cv-07535
- Analisa Torres
- Feb. 5, 2021
Background
Tzvee Wood and Andrea Malester, proceeding without lawyers, sued Mutual Redevelopment Houses, Inc., and other defendants over a dispute concerning their application to purchase a Mitchell-Lama apartment in New York City. The court had referred general pretrial matters to Magistrate Judge Debra C. Freeman. Discovery was stayed while defendants’ motion to dismiss was pending, and the court later dismissed claims against Michael Schwartz, the City of New York Department of Housing Preservation and Development, and Joseph Quigley. The court reconsidered that dismissal but did not reinstate those defendants.
After discovery resumed, Judge Freeman extended fact discovery one final time to September 27, 2019, warning that the deadline would not be extended without extraordinary cause. The plaintiffs sought another extension, asserting that misconduct by defendants’ counsel had deprived them of relevant documents and necessary depositions. Judge Freeman then ruled that discovery was closed and would not be reopened, and the court later overruled the plaintiffs’ objections to that ruling. Defendants subsequently moved for summary judgment.
Motions Before the Court
More than a year after fact discovery closed and after defendants filed their summary-judgment motion, the plaintiffs moved to reopen discovery. They also moved for sanctions against defendants’ counsel, moved to vacate the March 1, 2017 order and reinstate Michael Schwartz, the City of New York Department of Housing Preservation and Development, and Joseph Quigley, and moved to amend their complaint.
Rulings
Judge Torres denied the motion to reopen discovery. The plaintiffs had not submitted the required statement showing that they had conferred with defendants before filing the motion, and they had more than two years to conduct discovery. The court cited the principle that further discovery may be denied when a party opposing summary judgment had a fully adequate opportunity to obtain evidence.
The court denied the motion for sanctions because the plaintiffs embedded the request in their reply supporting the discovery motion. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11(c)(2) requires a sanctions motion to be made separately from any other motion.
The court denied the request to reinstate the previously dismissed defendants. Treating the request as one for relief from a final judgment under Rule 60(b), the court held that it was untimely because it was filed nearly four years after entry of the judgment, while the applicable rule generally requires such a request within one year.
The court also denied the motion to amend the complaint. The denials of the requests to reopen discovery and reinstate defendants foreclosed the proposed amendments, and the plaintiffs had substantially delayed seeking amendment. The order does not rule on the defendants’ summary-judgment motion. The Clerk was directed to terminate the motion to reopen discovery at ECF No. 278 and mail the order to the plaintiffs.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.