Local 3621, EMS Officers Union, DC-37, AFSCME, AFL-CIO v. City of New York
- Lewis Liman
- 1:18-cv-04476
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Local 3621 v. City of New York, Judge Liman overruled defendants’ objections and allowed merits discovery reaching back to 2004.
The plaintiffs and defendants in the case, because the ruling allowed merits discovery reaching back to 2004.
What happened
In Local 3621, EMS Officers Union, DC-37, AFSCME, AFL-CIO v. City of New York, the defendants challenged a magistrate judge’s order allowing discovery reaching back to 2004.
The court reviewed the challenge under a standard that permits changing a magistrate judge’s non-final ruling only if it was clearly mistaken or contrary to the law. The defendants argued that the discovery order conflicted with an earlier ruling in the case.
Judge Lewis J. Liman overruled the objections. He held that the court had never barred merits discovery dating back to 2004 and noted that an earlier discovery order preserved the plaintiffs’ right to request additional documents. The opinion did not decide the underlying merits of the case.
The detailed version
- Local 3621, EMS Officers Union, DC-37, AFSCME, AFL-CIO v. City of New York · No. 1:18-cv-04476
- Lewis Liman
- June 28, 2023
Background
The defendants objected to Magistrate Judge Jennifer Willis’s May 30, 2023 order, docket number 465. That order allowed discovery concerning the merits of the dispute to reach back to 2004. The defendants argued that the order was contrary to the law of the case, meaning an earlier ruling had supposedly already resolved the issue.
Legal standard
The district court explained that under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 72(a) and 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(A), a district judge may modify or set aside a magistrate judge’s ruling on a non-dispositive matter if it is clearly erroneous or contrary to law. A ruling is clearly erroneous only when the reviewing court is left with a definite and firm conviction that a mistake was made. A ruling is contrary to law when it fails to apply, or misapplies, relevant statutes, case law, or procedural rules.
Ruling
Judge Liman overruled the defendants’ objections. He found that the court had never ruled that the parties could not seek discovery dating back to 2004 as part of merits discovery. He also relied on an earlier order by Magistrate Judge Sarah Cave requiring production of responsive documents from 2012 to the present while expressly acknowledging that the plaintiffs had reserved the right to serve supplemental document requests. The court stated that it was not left with a definite and firm conviction that Magistrate Judge Willis had made a mistake. This order addressed the discovery dispute and did not resolve the underlying merits.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.