Wolff v. Texas Roadhouse Holdings, LLC

Background

The parties jointly requested a conference about a discovery dispute. Texas Roadhouse had produced Thomas Gunther, the general manager of the New Rochelle restaurant, for a deposition. Although Gunther did not witness the plaintiff’s incident, he had been present at the restaurant when it occurred, completed an incident report afterward, and was familiar with the restaurant’s reporting procedures.

After that deposition, the plaintiff requested another deposition of a witness involved in Texas Roadhouse’s risk-management or loss-prevention operations. The plaintiff sought testimony about the compilation of prior-accident data that Texas Roadhouse had produced and about the notice component of the plaintiff’s case. Texas Roadhouse objected, arguing that notice was not contested, that it had already provided an extensive list of prior similar accidents at other Texas Roadhouse locations, and that its proprietary data-compilation methods were irrelevant.

Court’s analysis

The court applied Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b)(1), which limits discovery to nonprivileged information relevant to a claim or defense and proportional to the needs of the case. The court considered the case’s limited facts, involving one incident at one Texas Roadhouse restaurant, and the fact that Texas Roadhouse had already provided the plaintiff with prior-accident data.

The court concluded that a deposition about Texas Roadhouse’s methodology for compiling that data was neither proportional nor directly relevant to whether Texas Roadhouse was negligent regarding the July 7, 2021 incident.

Ruling

Judge Paul A. Engelmayer denied the plaintiff’s further discovery request. The court also denied the parties’ request for a conference and requested that the clerk close the motion pending at docket 39. The opinion addresses the discovery dispute and does not decide the underlying negligence claim.