Dominguez v. City of New York

Background

Steen Dominguez’s complaint alleges that he was assaulted by several New York City police officers on January 1, 2020, lost consciousness, and suffered serious brain injuries. The defendants named in the letter are the City of New York, Police Officers Joseph Battista and Dylan Lynch, and other officers. The complaint originally also named Police Officers John Doe #1 through #6, but Dominguez later amended the complaint without identifying additional defendants and removed the John Doe defendants.

The plaintiff’s attorneys described repeated efforts to obtain information identifying officers involved in or witnessing the incident. The defendants provided a list of 24 officers but, according to the plaintiff’s letter, did not provide enough information to determine which officers were involved. Later disclosures identified Detectives Patrick Graney and Evan Nielson as involved in the incident and Sergeant Patrick Lynch as a supervisor. The plaintiff also described disputes over body-camera footage, police policies, internal-investigation materials, and disciplinary records.

Requests Before the Court

The plaintiff requested a 60-day extension of the remaining discovery deadlines. The defendants did not oppose that extension. The plaintiff separately asked the court to compel production of several categories of information and documents, including:

- six underlying disciplinary case files concerning allegations involving use of force, perjury, false statements, or misconduct; - other internal-investigation documents and police paperwork concerning the incident; - relevant New York City Police Department Patrol Guide sections and policies; - an affidavit from an authorized person describing the search for body-camera recordings and answering the plaintiff’s specified questions about those recordings; and - the name and title of a witness to be offered for a deposition concerning the City’s policies and practices.

The plaintiff argued that the requested materials were relevant to claims involving excessive force, denial of a fair trial, and false arrest. The defendants objected to producing most of the disciplinary materials, citing relevance, the age or lack of substantiation of some allegations, and privacy and security concerns. The defendants also indicated that some body-camera footage might have been deleted in the ordinary course of business.

Court’s Action

The court stated: “Application GRANTED IN PART.” It granted the unopposed request to extend the remaining discovery deadlines. The parties were ordered to complete fact discovery by December 20, 2022, and expert discovery by February 3, 2023.

The court did not grant or deny the plaintiff’s request to compel production at this stage. Instead, it ordered the defendants to respond to that request in a letter brief by October 24, 2022. The court expressly reserved judgment so it could hear from all parties. Thus, the endorsed order resolved the discovery-extension request but left the production dispute pending.