NEW YORK STATE ASSEMBLY MEMORANDUM IN SUPPORT OF LEGISLATION submitted in accordance with Assembly Rule III, Sec 1(f)
BILL NUMBER: A6554
SPONSOR: Braunstein (MS) TITLE OF BILL: An act to amend the civil practice law and rules, in
relation to prevention of abuse during discovery
This is one in a series of measures being introduced at the request of
the Chief Administrative Judge upon the recommendation of her Advisory
Committee on Civil Practice.
This measure would amend CPLR § 3103(a) to expand the delineated persons
who may seek the remedy of a protective order in regard to the use of
discovery devices such as a subpoena for records.
Presently the statute contemplates protective orders made by the court
on its own motion or on motion of a party or a person from whom discov-
ery is sought. Not addressed is a person about whom records are being
subpoenaed from either a party or another non-party. By way of example,
if an accountant is subpoenaed to produce the records of clients who are
not parties to the litigation, it is unclear under the present statute
whether the non-party clients would have standing to object to the
production of their records.
It would be an unwarranted anomaly for such non-parties to have less of
a right to protect their records than those persons already delineated
in the statute.
It should be noted that it is not the purpose of this amendment to
change existing case law as to whether or not a third party has a
protectable interest in certain records. See, Norkin v. Hoey, 181 A.D.2d
248, 252 (1st Dept., 1992) (bank records); People v. DiRaffaele, 55
N.Y.2d 234 (1982) (telephone records). This measure would solely provide
a procedural mechanism by which a person, whose information is contained
in the records sought, may object to the subpoena.
This measure would have no fiscal impact on the State. It would take
effect immediately and apply to all actions pending on such effective
date or commenced on or after such effective date.
LEGISLATIVE HISTORY: None. New proposal.
