Opinion
06-08-2016
AALCO TRANSPORTATION & STORAGE, INC., plaintiff/counterclaim defendant-respondent, v. Joseph DeGUARA, defendant/counterclaim plaintiff-appellant, Bel–Air Consulting & Design, LLC, defendant-appellant, Jeffrey S. Krevat, additional counterclaim defendant-respondent.
Jaspan Schlesinger LLP, Garden City, NY (Linda S. Agnew and Shannon E. Boettjer of counsel), for defendant/counterclaim plaintiff-appellant and defendant-appellant (one brief filed). Hamburger, Maxson, Yaffe & McNally, LLP, Melville, NY (Inna N. Cordiale and Richard Hamburger of counsel), for plaintiff/counterclaim defendant-respondent and additional counterclaim defendant-respondent.
Jaspan Schlesinger LLP, Garden City, NY (Linda S. Agnew and Shannon E. Boettjer of counsel), for defendant/counterclaim plaintiff-appellant and defendant-appellant (one brief filed).
Hamburger, Maxson, Yaffe & McNally, LLP, Melville, NY (Inna N. Cordiale and Richard Hamburger of counsel), for plaintiff/counterclaim defendant-respondent and additional counterclaim defendant-respondent.
REINALDO E. RIVERA, J.P., THOMAS A. DICKERSON, JOSEPH J. MALTESE, and BETSY BARROS, JJ.
Opinion In an action, inter alia, to recover damages for breach of an employment agreement, Joseph DeGuara and Bel–Air Consulting & Design, LLC, appeal, as limited by their brief, from (1) so much of an order of the Supreme Court, Suffolk County (Rebolini, J.), dated March 3, 2014, as denied their motion to compel the disclosure of certain financial documents and the production of previously produced electronic documents in a specific format, and (2) so much of an order of the same court dated August 4, 2014, as, upon reargument, adhered to its original determination.
ORDERED that the appeal from the order dated March 3, 2014, is dismissed, as that order was superseded by the order dated August 4, 2014, made upon reargument; and it is further,
ORDERED that the order dated August 4, 2014, is affirmed insofar as appealed from; and it is further,
ORDERED that one bill of costs is awarded to the plaintiff/counterclaim defendant and the additional counterclaim defendant.
“A party is not entitled to unlimited, uncontrolled, unfettered disclosure, and the supervision of discovery is generally left to the trial court's broad discretion” (Geffner v. Mercy Med. Ctr., 83 A.D.3d 998, 998, 922 N.Y.S.2d 470 ; see Quinones v. 9 E. 69th St., LLC, 132 A.D.3d 750, 18 N.Y.S.3d 106 ; Foster v. Herbert Slepoy Corp., 74 A.D.3d 1139, 902 N.Y.S.2d 426 ; Gilman & Ciocia, Inc. v. Walsh, 45 A.D.3d 531, 845 N.Y.S.2d 124 ). Here, the Supreme Court providently exercised its discretion in, upon reargument, denying that branch of the motion of Joseph DeGuara and Bel–Air Consulting & Design, LLC (hereinafter together the appellants), which was to compel the plaintiff and the additional counterclaim defendant to comply with certain demands for discovery. The appellants failed to demonstrate that the financial documents sought were material and necessary to their defenses or counterclaims (see CPLR 3101[a] ; Gitlin v. Chirinkin, 71 A.D.3d 728, 895 N.Y.S.2d 724 ). Further, it was not an improvident exercise of the Supreme Court's discretion to deny that branch of the appellants' motion which was to compel the production of electronic documents in a different format than that in which the documents were previously produced.