Azzarmi v. 55 Fulton Market
- George Daniels
- 1:20-cv-06835
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 9
In Azzarmi v. 55 Fulton Market, Judge Moses denied one discovery motion and partly denied and partly granted another, requiring further briefing and a hearing.
Aasir Azzarmi, 55 Fulton Market, the other defendants involved in the discovery disputes, and the witnesses whose testimony may be addressed at the scheduled hearing.
What happened
In Aasir Azzarmi v. 55 Fulton Market, Azzarmi filed two motions about discovery. The first challenged former defendant Key Food Stores’ responses to requests for admission. The second concerned a corporate deposition, alleged obstruction, missing surveillance video, and the deposition of Shamin Chaitram.
The court denied the first motion because it was filed too late, concerned responses from a former defendant, and apparently was not preceded by the required good-faith discussion with opposing counsel. The court denied in part the second motion, rejecting requests for sanctions over the missing video and for a second deposition of Chaitram.
The court granted in part the second motion by setting briefing and a hearing on the unresolved issues, including whether Angel Palma should testify again and whether Chaitram’s deposition involved coaching or false testimony. Judge Moses also extended the summary-judgment deadline until 30 days after the remaining discovery motions are decided.
The detailed version
- Azzarmi v. 55 Fulton Market · No. 1:20-cv-06835
- George Daniels
- Oct. 7, 2022
Background
Discovery in this case closed on October 7, 2022, after what the court described as unusually contentious disputes. Plaintiff Aasir Azzarmi was proceeding without a lawyer except for limited-scope pro bono assistance concerning party depositions. Magistrate Judge Barbara Moses addressed two discovery letter-motions filed by Azzarmi.
September 8 letter-motion
Azzarmi challenged responses that former defendant Key Food Stores Cooperative, Inc. had served in May 2021 to Azzarmi’s first and second sets of requests for admission. Azzarmi asked the court to treat various facts as automatically admitted or to require the current defendants to provide further responses.
The court denied the September 8 letter-motion for three independent reasons:
- Untimeliness: Azzarmi filed the motion only 29 days before fact discovery closed, even though the challenged responses had been served about 16 months earlier. The case-management orders required discovery applications to be made promptly and stated that, absent extraordinary circumstances, applications filed later than 30 days before discovery closed could be denied as untimely.
- Former defendant: The requests for admission had been directed to and answered by Key Food Stores, which was no longer a party because all claims against it had been dismissed on March 25,
- 3. Failure to meet and confer: The court found no indication that Azzarmi had raised the alleged deficiencies with counsel or had engaged in the good-faith discussion required before seeking court intervention under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37(a)(1), Local Civil Rule 37.2, and the judge’s individual practices.
September 23 letter-motion
Azzarmi’s second motion raised several issues involving 55 Fulton Market. Azzarmi argued that Angel Palma, who served as the company’s corporate witness and was also an individual defendant, was not adequately prepared to testify under Rule 30(b)(6). Azzarmi also alleged that defense counsel made improper speaking objections and obstructed the deposition. In addition, Azzarmi sought sanctions for the failure to preserve surveillance video that might have shown Palma allegedly making defamatory statements about Azzarmi in the store. Azzarmi further sought a second deposition of Shamin Chaitram, arguing that Chaitram was a managing agent rather than a third-party witness. Finally, Azzarmi relied on a declaration from Erika L. Lee to argue that Chaitram had lied about her memory and had been coached by defense counsel.
The court denied in part the September 23 letter-motion as to two requests.
First, it denied the request for sanctions concerning the missing surveillance video. The request was untimely because Azzarmi had known for approximately 17 months that the video had not been retained and waited until shortly before discovery closed to seek sanctions. The court also concluded that the request lacked merit because Azzarmi had not shown that 55 Fulton Market had a duty to preserve the video before it was served with process in the lawsuit. Under the evidence-preservation rules, a duty generally arises when a party knows, or should know, that evidence is relevant to current or future litigation. The court found that Azzarmi had not shown that 55 Fulton Market had that obligation at the relevant time.
Second, the court denied the request to depose Chaitram again as a managing agent. Even if Chaitram remained employed by 55 Fulton Market while on disability leave, the court stated that this would not turn her from a witness with personal knowledge into a corporate representative under Rule 30(b)(6), and therefore would not justify a second deposition on that basis.
The court otherwise granted in part the September 23 letter-motion by requiring formal briefing and an evidentiary hearing on the unresolved issues. Those issues included Azzarmi’s allegation that Chaitram lied or was coached during her deposition and Azzarmi’s request for additional Rule 30(b)(6) testimony from Palma because he allegedly was not adequately prepared. The court stated that the allegations concerning Chaitram were serious and depended on the evidentiary foundation of Lee’s declaration. If Azzarmi continued to rely on that declaration, Lee would have to testify in person under oath at the hearing.
Further proceedings and disposition
The court set deadlines of October 21, 2022, for Azzarmi’s moving papers, November 4, 2022, for defendants’ opposition, and November 11, 2022, for any reply. The court scheduled a hearing for November 21, 2022, and required the parties to follow specified filing, transcript, declaration, page-limit, and service requirements. Defendants could also file their own discovery-related motions under the same schedule.
The order’s conclusion states that Azzarmi’s September 8 letter-motion was DENIED and that the September 23 letter-motion was DENIED IN PART AND GRANTED IN PART, as described above. The court extended the deadline for summary-judgment motions until 30 days after it decided the remaining discovery-related motions.
Read the full 9-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.