State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company v. Fatiha
- James Oetken
- 1:20-cv-00443
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
State Farm v. Fatiha: Judge Oetken ordered two nonparties to sit for depositions and required advance and past witness-fee payments.
The order directly affects nonparties Samira A. Agayev and Vladislav Aguvayev, who must sit for depositions, and the plaintiffs, who must make the ordered witness-fee payments.
What happened
In State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company v. Fatiha, the plaintiffs asked the court to require nonparty Samira A. Agayev to continue her deposition and nonparty Vladislav Aguvayev to attend his deposition. Both said medical issues prevented them from testifying, and Aguvayev’s lawyer did not respond to a later court order about his medical status.
The court treated Agayev’s submission as a request to prevent or limit her deposition because of her health. It found that she had not shown the specific and serious harm required for such an order. The opinion’s copies of some medical details are unclear because of redactions or text problems.
Judge Oetken ordered Agayev and Aguvayev to sit for depositions within 30 days, with each deposition limited to three hours. He also ordered the plaintiffs to pay Agayev’s witness fee in advance and to pay her $131.63 from the earlier deposition within 30 days.
The detailed version
- State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company v. Fatiha · No. 1:20-cv-00443
- James Oetken
- July 14, 2023
Background
The plaintiffs filed a letter motion asking the court to compel two nonparties to participate in depositions. They asked the court to require Samira A. Agayev to appear for her continued deposition and Vladislav Aguvayev to comply with a subpoena for his deposition. Agayev and Aguvayev maintained that significant medical issues prevented them from sitting for depositions.
On June 2, 2023, the court directed counsel for both nonparties to submit letter motions describing their current medical status by June 23. Counsel for Aguvayev did not respond to that order. Counsel for Agayev submitted medical information under seal and represented that Agayev could not attend her continued deposition because of pre-existing conditions that she said were worsened by the stress of the deposition and that had deteriorated since her initial deposition in 2022. Some of the medical information reproduced in the opinion is missing or unreadable.
Court’s Analysis
The court interpreted Agayev’s submission as a request for a protective order under Rule 26(c) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. A protective order can protect a person from annoyance, embarrassment, oppression, or undue burden or expense, but the person seeking it must show good cause. The court stated that good cause requires proof that a clearly defined, specific, and serious injury will occur without the order.
After reviewing the sealed submissions, the court concluded that Agayev had not shown good cause. It noted that, as of May 2023, she had reported something to her medical provider, but the relevant text in the opinion is corrupted or redacted. The court also found that she had not shown that her medical condition would cause a clearly defined, specific, and serious injury if she had to sit for a deposition.
Order
Judge J. Paul Oetken ordered Agayev and Aguvayev each to sit for a deposition within 30 days of the order. Neither deposition may last more than three hours. The court also ordered the plaintiffs to make Agayev’s requested advance payment of witness fees under 28 U.S.C. § 1821 before her continued deposition and to pay the $131.63 she said remained owed from her initial deposition within 30 days of the order.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.