Justice Lewis Lubell
Mother brought an action on behalf of her son, DK, to recover for alleged physical, emotional and psychological damages and developmental delays DK sustained resulting from alleged physical, sexual and emotional abuse by teachers within the defendant school district. DK was non-verbal and a severely impaired autistic child. Defendant sought an order compelling discovery from plaintiff, and compelling DK’s parents to appear for a psychiatric examination. The court denied the motion noting mother, while a party to the action in her representative capacity, her mental condition was not in controversy. Thus, any reliance by defendant on CPLR 3121(a) was misplaced as it only compelled an examination of a party whose mental or physical condition was in controversy. Also, the court stated it was not persuaded that the in-depth forensic psychiatric examination sought here was a logical extension of an IQ exam permitted under Anderson by Anderson v. Seigel, a lead poisoning case, as the IQ exam was "likely to lead to the discovery of admissible or relevant evidence." Thus, it ruled subjecting mother to the demanded evaluation outweighed any relevance the results may bear on the issues of causation or damages.