Morrison v. Scotia Capital Inc.
- Sidney Stein
- 1:21-cv-01859
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Morrison v. Scotia Capital (USA) Inc., Judge Parker set discovery deadlines, granted two requests, and denied two others.
Emily Morrison and Scotia Capital (USA) Inc. were required to comply with the discovery deadlines and rulings. Morrison had to provide tax, social-media, medical, deposition, and counseling-related information, while Scotia Capital had to identify depositions, participate in discovery, and produce the requested candidate-interview documents. Morrison’s spouse, a non-party, retained any applicable privilege over his own emotional counseling information.
What happened
In Morrison v. Scotia Capital (USA) Inc., the court issued an order after a case-management conference addressing discovery in Emily Morrison’s lawsuit against Scotia Capital (USA) Inc. The order required Morrison to identify social-media accounts, produce tax returns, propose deposition dates, and not oppose certain efforts to enforce subpoenas for her medical records.
The court set deadlines for depositions, medical examinations, expert reports, and other discovery. It denied Scotia Capital’s request for Morrison’s fee arrangement with her lawyer and denied Morrison’s request that documents be reproduced in a format identifying the request to which each document responded. It granted Morrison’s request for documents about candidates interviewed for salesperson or Sales Manager positions from 2017 through 2020, and granted Scotia Capital’s request for Morrison’s marriage-counseling records.
Judge Katharine H. Parker stated that Morrison had placed her emotional condition at issue and had waived any applicable privilege as to her own counseling records, but that Morrison’s spouse had not waived the privilege protecting his emotional counseling information. The court also stated that the counseling records exchanged in discovery should not be made public and directed the Clerk to terminate the motion at ECF No. 79.
The detailed version
- Morrison v. Scotia Capital Inc. · No. 1:21-cv-01859
- Sidney Stein
- May 15, 2024
Background
The parties appeared before Magistrate Judge Katharine H. Parker for a case-management conference on May 14, 2024. The order addressed discovery obligations and deadlines in Emily Morrison’s action against Scotia Capital (USA) Inc.
Discovery deadlines and obligations
The order required Morrison’s counsel to file letters or affidavits by May 17, 2024, in proceedings in other districts involving subpoenas for Morrison’s medical records, stating that Morrison did not oppose the requests. Morrison also had to provide Scotia Capital by May 17 a list of the social-media accounts she used and the platforms on which she posted material.
Morrison had to produce tax returns from 2016 through the present by May 24, 2024. The returns could be partially redacted but had to show all earnings, including passive earnings from self-employment, employment, and business income. Morrison had to submit a proposed schedule of depositions by May 28, 2024.
The order set these additional deadlines:
- Scotia Capital had to identify by June 14, 2024, all depositions it intended to notice other than Morrison’s deposition. - The parties had to submit a joint discovery-status letter by June 14,
- - Morrison’s deposition had to occur by June 25,
- - Scotia Capital’s independent medical examination of Morrison had to be completed by July 31,
- - All fact-witness depositions had to be completed by August 30,
- - Opening expert reports were due August 30, 2024, and rebuttal reports were due September 27,
- - All expert depositions had to be completed by October 11, 2024.
Rulings on discovery requests
The court denied Scotia Capital’s request to compel production of Morrison’s fee arrangement with her counsel.
The court granted Morrison’s request for documents concerning candidates interviewed for salesperson or Sales Manager positions from 2017 through 2020.
The court denied Morrison’s request that Scotia Capital reproduce documents in a manner showing which discovery request each document answered. The court found that Scotia Capital had produced electronically stored information in the way the records were normally maintained.
The court granted Scotia Capital’s request for records from Morrison’s marriage counselor. The court stated that Morrison had placed her emotional state at issue, making the records relevant, and had waived any applicable privilege. The court separately stated that Morrison’s spouse, who was not a party and had not placed his emotional state at issue, had not waived any applicable psychotherapist privilege.
The court reminded the parties that, under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act and the cited regulations, the marriage-counseling information exchanged during discovery was not subject to a First Amendment or common-law public right of access. It stated that the discovery should not disclose the records to the public and noted that it could consider narrowly tailored requests to seal the records if the parties later sought to admit them at trial.
Disposition
Judge Katharine H. Parker ordered the listed discovery steps and deadlines, denied Scotia Capital’s request for Morrison’s fee arrangement, granted Morrison’s request for candidate-interview documents, denied Morrison’s requested document-formatting relief, and granted Scotia Capital’s request for Morrison’s marriage-counseling records. The Clerk was directed to terminate the motion at ECF No. 79.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.