Romano v. AC360 Media, LLC
- Laura Swain
- 1:20-cv-08988
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Romano v. AC360 Media, Magistrate Judge Wang partly granted and partly denied defendants’ requests to pause discovery while their dismissal motions remained pending.
Brittany Romano, the A360 defendants—A360 Media, LLC, Eli Lippman, and Spencer Cain—and Nadine DeNinno.
What happened
In Romano v. AC360 Media, LLC, the defendants asked the court to pause discovery while their motions to dismiss Brittany Romano’s claims were pending. Romano opposed the requests.
The court found good cause for limited pauses in discovery against both the A360 defendants and Nadine DeNinno. Even during those pauses, the defendants had to produce by July 2, 2021 certain employment, ADHD, termination, and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint records, subject to limits on the documents and custodians.
Magistrate Judge Ona T. Wang granted the discovery-stay motions in part and denied them in part. The limited stays would end if the district court did not grant the defendants’ dismissal motions in their entirety, after which Romano would have 14 days to serve revised discovery requests.
The detailed version
- Romano v. AC360 Media, LLC · No. 1:20-cv-08988
- Laura Swain
- June 3, 2021
Background
Defendants asked the court to stay, or pause, discovery while their pending motions to dismiss were being decided. The A360 defendants were A360 Media, LLC, formerly known as American Media, Inc., Eli Lippman, and Spencer Cain. Nadine DeNinno separately joined the A360 defendants’ arguments. The defendants argued that Romano’s discovery requests were too broad, that she would not be harmed by a pause, that their dismissal motions were likely to succeed, and that a partial dismissal would narrow the discovery needed. Romano opposed the stays.
Ruling
The court stated that filing a motion to dismiss does not automatically stop discovery, but that a court may pause discovery when there is good cause. It found good cause for a limited stay as to the A360 defendants and directed them to produce, by July 2, 2021, to the extent they had not already done so: Romano’s personnel file; documents and email communications concerning Romano’s attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder; documents and email communications concerning her termination; and documents and email communications concerning her Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint. At this stage, the custodians were limited to Romano, the named defendants, and one or more relevant human-resources personnel.
The court also found good cause for a limited stay as to DeNinno. To the extent DeNinno had documents in her possession, custody, or control in those categories, she had to produce documents relating solely to Romano’s employment at A360 Media, excluding prospective employment with the New York Post and excluding duplicate documents held by the A360 defendants. Those documents were also due by July 2, 2021.
Effect of the Order
If the district court did not grant either the A360 defendants’ or DeNinno’s motion to dismiss in its entirety, the applicable limited stay would be lifted. Romano would then have 14 days from the district court’s order to serve revised discovery requests. The court directed the clerk to close the entries for the two discovery-stay motions. Magistrate Judge Ona T. Wang therefore granted the motions in part and denied them in part.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.