Opinion
December 26, 1989
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Queens County (Smith, J.).
Ordered that the order is reversed insofar as appealed from, with costs, and the plaintiff's motion is denied.
We find that the Supreme Court improvidently exercised its discretion by unconditionally precluding the defendants from offering any evidence at trial with respect to all of the items set forth in the plaintiff's demand for a bill of particulars as well as imposing monetary sanctions.
As a general proposition, a "demanding party should not be granted more relief for nondisclosure than is reasonably necessary to protect legitimate interests" (Oak Beach Inn Corp. v Babylon Beacon, 62 N.Y.2d 158, 166-167, cert denied 469 U.S. 1158; Gaylord Bros. v RND Co., 134 A.D.2d 848). The record at bar reveals that the defendants substantially complied with the plaintiff's demands for discovery by producing 75 pages of documentation within the 20-day time period prescribed in the court's initial discovery order and by supplying hundreds if not thousands of documents thereafter (see, Di Lorenzo v Ellison, 114 A.D.2d 926; Jet Asphalt Corp. v Consolidated Edison Co., 114 A.D.2d 489; Nitec Paper Corp. v Carborundum Co., 73 A.D.2d 881). In view of the foregoing, it cannot be said that the defendants willfully or contumaciously refused to comply with the outstanding discovery order so as to warrant the harsh and extreme sanctions imposed herein (see also, Bassett v Bando Sangsa Co., 103 A.D.2d 728; Bohlman v Reichman, 97 A.D.2d 426; Newman v Chartered New England Corp., 63 A.D.2d 617).
We note, moreover, that the plaintiff may not be heard to complain that it was prejudiced by the delay in discovery compliance since the plaintiff waited approximately two years before moving to enforce the terms of the court's initial discovery order (see, Queens Farms Dairy v Consolidated Edison Co., 63 A.D.2d 696). In any event, as this court has previously noted, "the fact that a party is dissatisfied with the [discovery responses] proffered by another party is an insufficient basis upon which to conclude that the party willfully and contumaciously failed to comply with a court order compelling disclosure" (E.K. Constr. Co. v Town of N. Hempstead, 144 A.D.2d 427; Miller v Duffy, 126 A.D.2d 527; see also, Wohlgemuth v Logan, 144 A.D.2d 160). Mollen, P.J., Thompson, Lawrence and Eiber, JJ., concur.