59 Murray Enterprises, Inc. v. The City of New York
- Lewis Liman
- 1:02-cv-04432
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In 59 Murray Enterprises v. City of New York, Judge Liman denied defendants’ request to exclude evidence before a trial challenging adult-entertainment zoning amendments.
The plaintiffs and defendants in the four actions listed in the order. The ruling allows the plaintiffs’ challenged evidence to be received at the bench trial.
What happened
59 Murray Enterprises, Inc. v. The City of New York is one of four cases challenging the constitutionality of New York City’s 2001 zoning amendments for adult-entertainment venues and adult bookstores. The plaintiffs planned to present evidence about the availability and commercial viability of alternative locations, including locations in Manhattan.
The defendants asked the court to exclude that evidence as irrelevant. They also sought to exclude evidence supporting the plaintiffs’ claim that the City had to conduct a new study of the zoning amendments’ effects. The court said the evidence could help it understand the amendments’ effects and was not clearly inadmissible.
Judge Lewis J. Liman denied the defendants’ motion in limine. The challenged declarations, affidavits, exhibits, stipulated facts, and witness testimony therefore would be received for the scheduled bench trial.
The detailed version
- 59 Murray Enterprises, Inc. v. The City of New York · No. 1:02-cv-04432
- Lewis Liman
- Oct. 23, 2023
Background
The opinion is one of four memoranda and orders in the document. The case challenges under the First Amendment the 2001 Amendments to the New York City Zoning Resolution as applied to adult-entertainment venues and adult bookstores. The amendments were subject to a preliminary injunction. A bench trial was scheduled for November 15, 2023.
Motion and challenged evidence
The defendants filed a motion in limine, which is a request for an advance ruling about whether particular evidence may be presented at trial. They argued that the plaintiffs’ evidence was irrelevant. The challenged material concerned three subjects: the availability of alternative locations for adult establishments on a borough-by-borough basis; whether alternative locations were commercially viable for adult entertainment; and the plaintiffs’ claim that the City was required to conduct a new study of the zoning law’s effects.
The evidence consisted of selected portions of expert declarations and affidavits, several exhibits, stipulated facts, and testimony from some plaintiffs. The declarations were to be received as the witnesses’ direct testimony at the bench trial.
Court’s reasoning
The court explained that evidence is relevant if it could affect the information considered by the fact-finder, and that evidence should be excluded before trial only when it is clearly inadmissible on all possible grounds. The court also noted that relevance concerns operate differently in a bench trial because the judge, rather than a jury, evaluates the evidence. Here, the court could not say that the plaintiffs’ evidence was clearly inadmissible.
The court further concluded that receiving the evidence would not cause undue delay or unnecessary expense. The challenged material involved only a few declaration and affidavit paragraphs and six of many exhibits. The court stated that the evidence would help provide a complete picture of the effects of the 2001 Amendments, while excluding it could create an unnecessary issue concerning a possible appeal.
Disposition
The court denied the defendants’ motion in limine. The order did not decide the underlying First Amendment challenge; it ruled that the specified evidence would not be excluded before trial.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.