Adrian Schoolcraft v. City of New York

ADRIAN SCHOOLCRAFT, v. CITY OF NEW YORK, et al., Defendants.

10 Civ. 6005 (RWS)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK

Date: June 13, 2012

OPINION

APPEARANCES:

Attorneys for the Plaintiff

THE LAW OFFICES OF JON L. NORINSBERG, ESQ.

By: Jon L. Norinsberg, Esq.

COHEN FITCH LLP

By: Joshua Paul Fitch, Esq.

Gerald M. Cohen, Esq.

Attorneys for the City Defendants & Non-Party Councilman

Peter Vallone, Jr.

MICHAEL A. CARDOZO

CORPORATION COUNSEL OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK

By: Suzanna Hallie Publicker, Esq.

Maxwell Douglas Leighton, Esq.

Donna Anne Canfield, Esq.

William Solomon Jacob Fraenkel, Esq.

Sweet, D.J.

There are currently two motions pending before the Court. Plaintiff Adrian Schoolcraft ("Schoolcraft," or the "Plaintiff") has requested leave to amend his complaint to add a First Amendment retaliation claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and to substitute Lieutenant William Gough for Lieutenant Joseph Goff who was incorrectly named in the complaint. Additionally, nonparty Councilman Peter Vallone, Jr. has requested that the Court quash the subpoena served upon him by Plaintiff seeking, among other things, records of complaints regarding the alleged downgrading of crime reports and documents reflecting the alleged failure of the New York City Police Department (the "NYPD") to report crime statistics and the existence of an alleged arrest/summons quota policy. Based on the facts and conclusions set forth below, Plaintiff's motion to amend the complaint is granted in part and denied in part, and Councilman Vallone's motion to quash is denied.

Facts & Prior Proceedings

The facts of the case are detailed in this Court's opinion dated May 6 which granted in part and denied in part Defendant Jamaica Hospital Medical Center's motion to dismiss.See Schoolcraft v. City of New York, No. 10 Civ. 6005(RWS), 2011 WL 1758635, at *1 (S.D.N.Y. May 6, 2011) . Familiarity with those facts is assumed.

On April 25, 2012, Plaintiff wrote to the Court requesting leave to amend the complaint to add a First Amendment retaliation claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The letter was treated as a motion and a date set for argument. After receiving several letters from both Plaintiff and counsel for Defendants City of New York, the NYPD, and the individual police officers (the "City Defendants"), the motion was heard and marked fully submitted on May 9, 2012.

On May 11, 2012, non-party Councilman Peter Vallone, Jr., represented by the City Defendants' counsel, wrote to the Court requesting that Plaintiff's subpoena be quashed. The letter was treated as a motion and a date set for argument. After receiving correspondence from both Plaintiff and Councilman Vallone, the motion was heard and marked fully submitted on May 23, 2012.

The Applicable Standards

A. Standard Applicable To Plaintiff's Motion To Amend

Pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a)(2), leave to amend a complaint shall be given "freely" when "justice so requires." "If the underlying facts or circumstances relied upon by a plaintiff may be a proper subject of relief, he ought to be afforded an opportunity to test his claim on the merits." Williams v. Citigroup Inc., 659 F.3d 208, 213 (2d Cir. 2011) (quoting Foman v. Davis, 371 U.S. 178, 182, 83 S.Ct. 227, 9 L.Ed.2d 222 (1962)). However, "[a] district court has discretion to deny leave for good reason, including futility, bad faith, undue delay, or undue prejudice to the opposing party." McCarthy v. Dun & Bradstreet Corp., 482 F.3d 184, 200 (2d Cir. 2007); see also AEP Energy Servs. Gas Holding Co. v. Bank of Am., N.A., 626 F.3d 699, 726 (2d Cir. 2010) ("Leave to amend may be denied on grounds of futility if the proposed amendment fails to state a legally cognizable claim or fails to raise triable issues of fact.").

B. Standard Applicable To Councilman Vallone's Motion To Quash

Fed. R. Civ. 26(b)(1) governs the scope of discovery and permits discovery of materials that are relevant to "anyparty's claim or defense . . . Relevant information need not be admissible at the trial if the discovery appears reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence." Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1). "This obviously broad rule is liberally construed." Daval Steel Prods. V. M/V Fakredine, 951 F.2d 1357, 1367 (2d Cir. 1991). "[T]he overriding policy is one of disclosure of relevant information in the interest of promoting the search for truth in a federal question case." Burke v. N.Y. City Police Dep't, 115 F.R.D. 220, 225 (S.D.N.Y. 1987); see also Condit v. Dunne, 225 F.R.D. 100, 105 (S.D.N.Y. 2 004) ("Although not unlimited, relevance, for purposes of discovery, is an extremely broad concept.").

"The party issuing the subpoena must demonstrate that the information sought is relevant and material to the allegations and claims at issue in the proceedings." Night Hawk Ltd. v. Briarpatch Ltd, LP, No. 03 Civ. 1382, 2003 WL 23018833, at *8 (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 23, 2003) (citing Salvatore Studios Int'l v. Mako's Inc., No. 01 Civ. 4430, 2001 WL 913945, at *1 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 14, 2001) ("Rule 26(b)(1) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure restricts discovery to matters relevant to the claims and defenses of the parties. Here, the burden is on Mako's [who issued the subpoena] to demonstrate relevance.");accord Bridgeport Music Inc. v. UMG Recordings, Inc., No. 05 Civ. 6430, 2007 WL 4410405, at *2 (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 17, 2007); Quotron Sys., Inc. v. Automatic Data Processing, Inc., 141 F.R.D. 37, 41 (S.D.N.Y. 1992); Culligan v. Yamaha Motor Corp., 110 F.R.D. 122, 125 (S.D.N.Y. 1986). Once the party issuing the subpoena has demonstrated the relevance of the requested documents, the party seeking to quash the subpoena bears the burden of demonstrating that the subpoena is overbroad, duplicative, or unduly burdensome. Sea Tow Int'l, Inc. v. Pontin, 246 F.R.D. 421, 424 (E.D.N.Y. 2007) ("The burden of persuasion in a motion to quash a subpoena ... is borne by the movant.") (quoting Jones v. Hirschfeld, 219 F.R.D. 71, 74-75 (S.D.N.Y. 2003). The determination of whether a subpoena is unduly burdensome turns, in part, on why the requested material is relevant. United States v. Int'l Bus. Mach. Corp., 83 F.R.D. 97, 104 (S.D.N.Y. 1979) (a court evaluating a motion to quash considers "such factors as relevance, the need of the party for the documents, the breadth of the document request, the time period covered by it, the particularity with which the documents are described and the burden imposed."); Concord Boat Corp. v. Brunswick Corp., 169 F.R.D. 44, 50 (S.D.N.Y. 1996) ("To the extent a subpoena sweepingly pursues material with little apparent or likely relevance to the subject matter it runs thegreater risk of being found overbroad and unreasonable."}.

Plaintiff's Motion To Amend The Complaint Is Granted In Part And Denied In Part

Plaintiff has requested leave to amend the complaint to add a First Amendment retaliation claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Plaintiff also requests that he be permitted to substitute Lieutenant William Gough for Lieutenant Joseph Goff who was incorrectly named in the original complaint. The request to substitute Lieutenant Gough as a defendant is made with the consent of all parties except the City Defendants. During discovery, the City Defendants provided Plaintiff with the UF 4 9 (Unusual Occurrence Report) from October 31, 2009, which indicated that Lieutenant William Gough was present at Plaintiff's home during the events that gave rise to this lawsuit. Lieutenant Joseph Goff was incorrectly named as a defendant on account of the similarity between his name and that of Lieutenant Gough.

As noted above, in deciding whether to grant leave to amend, district courts consider whether the party seeking the amendment has not unduly delayed, whether that party is acting in good faith, whether the opposing party will be prejudiced,and whether the amendment will be futile. See Foman, 371 U.S. at 182. All of these considerations favor granting Plaintiff's motion to substitute Lieutenant William Gough for Lieutenant Joseph Goff. There is no indication that Plaintiff's request is untimely or that Plaintiff is in any way acting in bad faith. The City Defendants have raised no objections on the basis of prejudice or futility. Accordingly, Plaintiff's request to substitute Lieutenant Gough for Lieutenant Goff is granted.

With respect to Plaintiff's request to add a First Amendment retaliation claim, Plaintiff's proposed amended complaint alleges that "[t]he actions taken by the NYPD defendants on the night of October 31, 2009 violated plaintiff's First Amendment right[s] as he was specifically preparing to disclose information to the public at large that the largest Police Department in the United States had committed serious and continuous breaches of the public trust and a fraud upon the public. Plaintiff's aforementioned unjustified arrest and detention was not authorized by law and instead constituted a prior restraint on a plaintiff's speech, which is presumptively unconstitutional and which constituted an abuse of power and a fraud upon the public." Compl. ¶¶ 255, 256. The proposed amended complaint also alleges that,

NYPD defendants unconstitutionally imposed this prior restraint on plaintiff's speech in an effort by defendants to silence, intimidate, threaten and prevent plaintiff from disclosing the evidence of corruption and misconduct plaintiff had been collecting and documenting to the media and public at large.

Specifically, NYPD defendants illegally seized plaintiff's draft report to Commissioner Raymond Kelly detailing the police corruption and misconduct he had been documenting and collecting in an effort to prevent said material from being disclosed to anyone.

Additionally, NYPD defendants also seized plaintiff's personal notes and other effects regarding his complaints against the 81st precinct in an effort to prevent said material from being disclosed to anyone and especially members of the news media and victims of the aforementioned

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