Harry v. The City of New York
- George Daniels
- 1:20-cv-05951
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Harry v. The City of New York, Judge Daniels denied Harry’s appeal of an order refusing to correct his deposition transcript.
Rilton Harry and the defendants in the action, because the court left in place the denial of Harry’s request to correct his deposition transcript.
What happened
In Harry v. The City of New York, Rilton Harry appealed a magistrate judge’s order denying his request to correct a deposition transcript.
Harry argued that the magistrate judge had made a mistake and that listening to the deposition’s audio recording would benefit the case despite the effort required. The district court reviewed the challenge under the standard for non-final matters handled by a magistrate judge.
Judge George B. Daniels found no clear mistake or legal error and determined that the disputed testimony did not matter to the defendants’ pending request for summary judgment or to Harry’s claims generally. The court denied Harry’s appeal.
The detailed version
- Harry v. The City of New York · No. 1:20-cv-05951
- George Daniels
- Dec. 9, 2022
Background
Rilton Harry appealed Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn’s October 28, 2022 order denying his motion to correct a deposition transcript. The opinion identifies the matter as non-dispositive, meaning it did not itself resolve the parties’ claims.
Arguments and standard of review
Harry argued that Magistrate Judge Netburn had wrongly found that he had not shown he was entitled to relief. He also argued that the benefit of having the court listen to the deposition’s audio recording outweighed the burden of doing so.
For a district court’s review of a magistrate judge’s decision on a non-dispositive matter, the court applies a “clearly erroneous or contrary to law” standard. Under that standard, the district court does not set aside the decision unless it finds a clear factual mistake or a legal error.
Court’s ruling
Judge George B. Daniels concluded that Harry had not shown that Magistrate Judge Netburn’s decision was clearly erroneous or contrary to law. The district court also reviewed the disputed testimony itself and found it immaterial to the defendants’ pending motion for summary judgment and to Harry’s claims more generally. The court therefore allowed the magistrate judge’s decision to stand and denied Harry’s appeal.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.