Fetahu v New Jersey Tr. Corp.
Annotate this CaseDecided on May 31, 2018
Supreme Court, New York County
Valbona Fetahu, Plaintiff,
against
New Jersey Transit Corp., Defendants.
158294/13
Plaintiff's Atty:
Jonah Grossman
18726 Perth Road
Jamaica, NY 11432
(212) 233-2277
Defendants' Atty:
Lynch & Lynch
401 Franklin Avenue, Suite 311
Garden City, NY 11530
(516) 873-0100
Adam Silvera, J.
Upon the foregoing papers, it is ordered that defendant's motion, motion sequence 003, for a protective order is granted for the reasons set forth below. Defendant New Jersey Transit [*2]moves pursuant to CPLR § 3103 to strike plaintiff's "Third Notice to Admit" as objectionable and overbroad, in that the matters sought to be admitted by plaintiff are not within the scope of CPLR § 3123. Plaintiff opposes the motion.
BACKGROUND
/i>
The matter at hand involves an accident that occurred on January 5, 2013, at or near the facility operated by The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey at 625 Eighth Avenue in the County, City, and State of New York, when plaintiff Valbona Fetahu was allegedly a passenger of a bus which made a sudden extreme stop and resulted in serious injuries.
The action was commenced on September 7, 2013 and answered by defendant on November 20, 2013. Plaintiff previously served two notices to admit, dated July 18, 2015, and March 4, 2016, and defendant responded to both notices. Plaintiff then brought a motion for an Order that all admissions requested in the second notice to admit be deemed admitted. Defendant opposed plaintiff's motion. In an Order dated October 20, 2017, the Honorable Paul A. Goetz denied plaintiff's motion, and found that defendant properly responded to the second notice to admit. The Court found that plaintiff's "Second Notice to Admit" improperly sought admissions as to digital recordings taken during the accident, the existence of which were in dispute by plaintiff and defendant (Plaintiff's Mot., Exh H).
Plaintiff then moved to reargue the Court's October 20, 2017 Order. The motion to reargue was denied by Justice Goetz by Order dated March 27, 2018. Plaintiff subsequently appealed the October 20, 2017 Order and the March 27, 2018 Order. Plaintiff's appeal is currently pending. The present motion concerns plaintiff's "Third Notice to Admit." In a stipulation dated January 10, 2018, the parties agreed to extend defendant's time to respond to a "Third Notice to Admit" to February 15, 2018. The present motion was timely made to seek the Court's relief to strike said notice to admit.
DISCUSSION
Pursuant to CPLR § 3123, a party may serve upon any party a written request for admission by the latter of the genuineness of any papers or documents, or the correctness or fairness of representation of any photographs, described in and served with the request, or of the truth of any matters of fact set forth in the request, as to which the party requesting the admission reasonably believes there can be no substantial dispute at the trial and which are within the knowledge of the other party or can be ascertained upon reasonable inquiry.
A notice to admit "is to be used only for disposing of uncontroverted questions of fact or those that are easily provable, and not for the purpose of compelling admission of fundamental and material issues or ultimate facts that can only be resolved after full trial" (Hawthrone Group v RRE Ventures, 7 AD3d 320, 321 [1st Dep't 2004]; see New Image Construction, Inc. v TDR Enterprises, Inc., 74 AD3d 680, 681 [1st Dep't 2010]). Thus, a notice to admit is "designed to elicit admissions on matters which the requesting party 'reasonably believes there can be no substantial dispute'" (National Union Fire Insurance, Co. v Allen, 232 AD2d 80, 85 [1st Dep't 1997] [quoting CPLR 3123(a)]).
A notice to admit can be used to resolve and eliminate from contention matters which, though factually relevant, are not in dispute; "however, the notice to admit cannot be used to seek admissions of material issues or ultimate, or conclusory facts, interpretations of law, questions already admitted in responsive pleadings or questions clearly irrelevant to the case" (Villa v New York City Housing Authority, 107 AD2d 619, 620 [1st Dep't 1985]). The language of a notice to admit is not overly broad when each item is limited to a specific date and place [*3](See id. at 621). A notice to admit is an improper device to request information that is duplicative of information already obtained through earlier discovery and while several requests within a notice may be proper, "it is not the court's obligation to prune" them from "largely redundant interrogatories" (Kimmel v Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, 214 Ad2d 453, 454 [1st Dep't 1995]).
Here, plaintiff's "Third Notice to Admit" is overly broad, concerned with admissions that are at substantial dispute between the parties, and attempts to elicit "admission of fundamental and material issues or ultimate facts that can only be resolved after full trial" (See Supra Hawthrone Group at 321). Plaintiff's notice to admit is open ended and merely demands admissions on matters prior to January 13, 2013, with no specificity as to date or how the requested admissions are relevant to the case.
Further, plaintiff's notice requests information that is not in possession of defendant but rather of non-party LYTX. While some of the demands made in plaintiff's "Third Notice to Admit" are proper in form, most are redundant and overly broad. It is not this Court's obligation to sift through them and approve demands piecemeal. Thus, plaintiff's "Third Notice to Admit" is improper and defendant's motion for a protective order to strike plaintiff's "Third Notice to Admit" is granted.
Accordingly, it is
ORDERED that plaintiff's motion for a protective order to strike plaintiff's "Third Notice to Admit" is granted, and plaintiff's "Third Notice to Admit" is stricken; and it is further
ORDERED that plaintiff shall serve a copy of this order with notice of entry upon defendant within 20 days of entry.
This constitutes the decision and order of the Court.
Dated: May 31, 2018
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
