Cintron v. Albert Einstein College of Medicine
- John Koeltl
- 1:21-cv-06256
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 7
Cintron v. Albert Einstein College of Medicine: Judge Parker granted defendants’ request to amend an admission and ordered production of related calendar entries.
Amanda Cintron and the defendants were affected: defendants may amend their Rule 36 admission, and they must produce related calendar entries; the order did not decide the underlying discrimination dispute.
What happened
In Cintron v. Albert Einstein College of Medicine, defendants asked to change an earlier admission about whether Ben-Ari attended a December 23, 2019 meeting where Amanda Cintron said she had lupus. They relied on deposition testimony from Ben-Ari and Tartarone indicating that Ben-Ari was not at the meeting and did not recall learning of Cintron’s lupus.
Cintron opposed the request, arguing that she had relied on the admission during discovery and that defendants waited too long to seek the change. The court found that changing the admission would help resolve the factual issue on its merits and would not unfairly prejudice Cintron because discovery was still open.
The court, in an opinion by Judge Katharine H. Parker, granted defendants’ motion. Defendants may amend the admission to state that they do not admit Ben-Ari attended the meeting, and they must produce any related calendar entries by August 19, 2022.
The detailed version
- Cintron v. Albert Einstein College of Medicine · No. 1:21-cv-06256
- John Koeltl
- Aug. 5, 2022
Background
Amanda Cintron served defendants with a request for admission under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 36. The request asked defendants to admit that Cintron had disclosed certain health conditions to several people, including Ben-Ari, Tartarone, Cancellieri, and Cotton, before her termination. Defendants admitted that, at a December 23, 2019 meeting involving Cintron, Tartarone, and Ben-Ari, Cintron stated that she had lupus.
During a deposition on May 9, 2022, Ben-Ari testified that he did not recall attending the meeting and had no recollection of being told that Cintron had lupus during her employment. He also indicated that documents showed he was not at the meeting. Tartarone later testified that Ben-Ari was not at the meeting. Defendants therefore moved under Rule 36(b) to amend their admission. Fact discovery was scheduled to remain open until September 9, 2022.
Legal standard
A Rule 36 admission is generally binding in the pending case unless the court permits it to be withdrawn or amended. Rule 36(b) permits a court to allow a change when doing so would help present the case’s merits and would not prejudice the requesting party’s ability to litigate the case on the merits. Prejudice requires more than the ordinary disadvantage resulting from losing the benefit of an admission; it can include special difficulty obtaining evidence because of the withdrawal or amendment.
The court’s analysis
The court found that the first requirement was met because the admission concerned a disputed factual issue: whether Ben-Ari knew that Cintron had lupus. The court explained that this knowledge might matter to an element Cintron would need to prove in showing discrimination. Cintron’s testimony conflicted with the testimony of Ben-Ari and Tartarone, and the court treated that conflict as a genuinely disputed issue that should be resolved on the evidence rather than on a technicality.
The court also found that Cintron would not be unfairly prejudiced. Discovery was still underway, giving her time to seek additional evidence. The court rejected her argument that she had relied on the admission when taking depositions and deciding not to seek certain documents, reasoning that Ben-Ari’s May 9 testimony had already alerted her that defendants disputed whether he knew about her disability.
The court rejected Cintron’s argument that defendants had to show good cause for waiting to file the motion. It explained that the good-cause standard in Rule 16 applies to changing a trial scheduling order, not to amending a Rule 36 admission. The court also rejected the bad-faith argument because discovery had not ended and no motions had been prepared in reliance on the admission, unlike the circumstances in the prior case discussed by the court.
Disposition
The court granted defendants’ motion at ECF No. 47. Defendants were permitted to amend the admission to state that they do not admit Ben-Ari attended the December 23, 2019 meeting. The court also directed defendants to produce, by Friday, August 19, 2022, all calendar entries in their possession, custody, or control relating to that meeting. The opinion decided the discovery-related motion and did not decide whether discrimination occurred.
Read the full 7-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.