Lebenns v. Frost Productions
- Barbara Moses
- 1:21-cv-11155
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Lebenns v. Frost Productions, Judge Willis denied requests for defense-funded expert costs and three depositions, while allowing a possible later sanctions request.
Andrew Lebenns and the defendants in the discovery dispute, including Frost Productions and the other named defendants.
What happened
In Lebenns v. Frost Productions, Andrew Lebenns asked the court to require the defendants to pay for a forensics expert and to schedule three additional depositions while extending discovery deadlines.
The court denied the request for defendants to pay for the expert without prejudice because the record did not show conduct that could support sanctions. Lebenns may hire an expert at his own expense and later seek sanctions to recover those costs if new information arises. The court also denied the request to schedule depositions of Barbara Green, Paul Witte, and Zack Lambirnon, finding that the proposed testimony was not shown to provide relevant information that outweighed the burden and that there was no good reason to extend the discovery deadlines.
Judge Jennifer E. Willis issued the order and directed the Clerk of Court to close the two motions. The order also stated that future requests to extend discovery deadlines should be made through a joint letter from the parties.
The detailed version
- Lebenns v. Frost Productions · No. 1:21-cv-11155
- Barbara Moses
- July 27, 2023
Background
The court considered two letter motions filed by Plaintiff Andrew Lebenns. The first asked to retain a forensics expert at Defendants’ cost. The second asked the defendants to schedule depositions of Barbara Green, Paul Witte, and Zack Lambirnon and to extend discovery deadlines. The defendants opposed both requests.
Forensics expert
The court denied Lebenns’s request to have the defendants pay for a forensics expert without prejudice. It found that the record did not support sanctions under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37. The court stated that Lebenns could retain a forensics expert at his own cost and renew a request for sanctions to recover those costs if new information arose.
Additional depositions and discovery deadlines
The court denied Lebenns’s request to compel the defendants to schedule the three proposed depositions. The court explained that the requesting party must show that the information sought is relevant. It also noted that discovery may be limited when it is unreasonably cumulative or duplicative, or when its burden or expense outweighs its likely benefit. Because the court had previously allowed the deposition of Mun Kong, a coworker of the type Lebenns sought to depose, it was not persuaded that the additional testimony would provide relevant information outweighing the burden of the proposed depositions. The court also found no good cause to extend the existing discovery deadlines for those depositions.
The court noted that it had previously granted a defendant’s request to extend discovery so that depositions of Lebenns and Defendant Markowitz, among others, could be completed. Because Lebenns’s letter suggested those depositions had still not occurred, the court instructed that any further requests for extensions should be made in a joint letter stating the parties’ positions if there was a dispute.
Disposition
Judge Jennifer E. Willis directed the Clerk of Court to close the two motions, docketed as Dkt. Nos. 90 and 91.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.