Galgano v. County of Putnam, New York
- Kenneth Karas
- 7:16-cv-03572
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Galgano v. County of Putnam, Magistrate Judge Davison granted Galgano’s protective-order motion against 329 requests for admission, finding the volume oppressive and unduly burdensome.
Galgano and the Individual County Defendants; the order concerns the defendants’ May requests for admission served on Galgano.
What happened
In Galgano v. County of Putnam, New York, Galgano asked for protection from 329 requests for admission served by the Individual County Defendants on May 24, 2021. The requests were in addition to 75 earlier requests, bringing the total to 404. The earlier requests were not before the court in this order.
The court explained that requests for admission are meant to obtain admissions about facts or documents already known, not to serve as a broad discovery tool. It found that the sheer number of requests was oppressive and created an undue burden. The court also noted that many of the May requests appeared to ask Galgano to accept the defendants’ paraphrases or shortened excerpts of communications, inviting complicated responses instead of simple admissions or denials.
Magistrate Judge Paul E. Davison granted Galgano’s motion for a protective order. The court declined to review each request individually and asked the Clerk to close the motion’s docket entries.
The detailed version
- Galgano v. County of Putnam, New York · No. 7:16-cv-03572
- Kenneth Karas
- June 30, 2021
Background
Galgano filed a letter-motion seeking a protective order concerning 329 requests for admission served by the Individual County Defendants on May 24, 2021. The requests were called the “May Requests.” The opinion states that the Individual County Defendants had also served 75 requests in March 2021, bringing the total number of requests served on Galgano to 404. The March requests were not the subject of this order, and the court expressed no opinion about them.
The opinion also notes that an interested party, Helen Galgano, filed a letter supporting the motion as to some of the requests. The court stated that it did not need to address the issues raised in that letter.
Legal standard
Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 36, a party may ask another party to admit facts, the application of law to facts, opinions about either, or the genuineness of documents. The court explained that requests for admission are not a general discovery device. They are intended to obtain admissions about facts already known to the requesting party and to narrow the issues for trial. Requests should be stated simply and directly so they can generally be answered by admitting or denying them, with clarification when needed.
The court relied on Rule 26(c)(1), which permits a protective order to protect a party from oppression or undue burden. It observed that courts routinely disallow requests for admission numbering in the hundreds when their volume is abusive, unreasonable, or oppressive.
Court’s analysis
The court concluded that the sheer number of requests served on Galgano warranted a protective order. It described this as a single-plaintiff civil-rights action and found that 404 total requests imposed an oppressive burden. Because the number alone justified protection, the court declined to undertake an individualized review of all 329 May Requests.
The court further noted that many of the May Requests apparently did not seek admissions about the authenticity or genuineness of documented communications. Instead, they appeared to ask Galgano to adopt the Individual County Defendants’ paraphrase of a communication or a shortened excerpt from a longer communication. The court said that this format invited nuanced and argumentative responses rather than the simple admit-or-deny responses contemplated by Rule 36.
Disposition
Magistrate Judge Paul E. Davison granted Galgano’s application for a protective order. The court asked the Clerk to close docket entries 575 and 576. The order did not decide the merits of the underlying civil-rights action and did not express an opinion on the March 2021 requests.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.