Antipova v. CareMount Medical P.C.

Background

Pro se plaintiff Yelena Antipova filed objections under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 72(a) to two non-dispositive orders issued by Magistrate Judge Barbara C. Moses during an October 3, 2022 telephone conference. Under Rule 72(a), a district judge must change or set aside a magistrate judge’s order if it is clearly erroneous or contrary to law. The court explained that this standard requires a strong showing that the magistrate judge made a mistake or failed to apply the relevant law.

First Objection: Request for Admission

Antipova objected to what she described as the denial of permission to re-serve a request for admission concerning whether she qualified as a “high-risk individual” under New York Public Health Law § 266. The court explained that Judge Moses had not ruled on whether the request’s content was proper. Instead, Judge Moses declined to extend the fact-discovery deadline or shorten the defendants’ time to respond, leaving Antipova unable to serve the request before discovery closed.

The court held that Antipova had not shown that this scheduling decision was clearly erroneous or contrary to law. Her argument addressed whether the request could have been served, rather than whether Judge Moses improperly refused to change the discovery deadlines. The court therefore sustained Judge Moses’s ruling and overruled Antipova’s objection. The court also noted that the proposed request appeared to seek an admission of law, which is generally outside the proper scope of a request for admission, although that proposed text had not been before Judge Moses.

Second Objection: Social Security Disability Benefits

Antipova also objected to Judge Moses’s order requiring her to produce documents showing the amounts of Social Security disability benefits she had received since 2021. Antipova argued that disclosing the amounts could disadvantage her in settlement discussions because the defendants might try to reduce their settlement proposals by those amounts.

The court found that concern was not a reason to deny otherwise proper discovery. It agreed with Judge Moses that the defendants were entitled to the information, sustained that ruling, and overruled Antipova’s objection.

Disposition

Judge John P. Cronan overruled both of Antipova’s objections and left both discovery rulings in place. The opinion addresses review of discovery-related rulings rather than deciding the underlying claims in the case.