Cale v. Mount Sinai Business Health

Background

Plaintiff Rehana Cale filed a letter motion concerning the format and timing of depositions. Cale’s counsel said that Cale’s deposition had occurred on February 1, 2024, and that Cale intended to depose Defendant Charles Psarreas on March 19, 2024. Defense counsel requested that Psarreas’s deposition be conducted remotely. Cale opposed remote depositions and asked the court to require the defendants’ employee depositions to occur in person.

Cale also asked the court to require Psarreas’s deposition to occur by a date certain in May 2024 or be waived, to extend discovery through May 2024, and to grant any other necessary extensions. The letter stated that discovery was scheduled to close on April 2, 2024. The opinion says that the parties had largely completed document discovery and had exchanged deficiency letters.

Court’s Analysis

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 30(b)(4) allows the parties to agree to a deposition by telephone or other remote means, or permits the court to order a remote deposition on motion. The court explained that deciding whether to require a remote deposition involves balancing prejudice and hardship and weighing the relevant facts.

After reviewing the parties’ submissions, the court exercised its discretion to require the depositions of Charles Psarreas and Thomas Spina to proceed in person. Defendants could choose to hold them at defense counsel’s offices, at the locations where Psarreas and Spina worked, or at another convenient location in Manhattan. If another location created expenses, defendants were required to pay them.

Disposition

The court stated that Cale’s letter motion was granted in part and denied in part. It ordered the Psarreas and Spina depositions to occur in person. It denied Cale’s request to extend the discovery deadline because Cale had not shown good cause for an extension. The opinion does not separately state how the court resolved each part of Cale’s request concerning a May deposition deadline or waiver.