This column reports on discovery decisions filed in April and May in New York-area federal courts. Southern District Magistrate Judge Theodore H. Katz filed a decision addressing the circumstances under which employees of a foreign plaintiff should be considered managing agents, subjecting them to deposition in New York.
In other decisions of note, Southern District Judge Robert P. Patterson precluded an expert from testifying because his report did not provide the data and information on which his opinion was based, and Southern District Judge Robert W. Sweet declined to preclude a defendant from asserting an advice of counsel defense where the defendant had waived the attorney client privilege some two years earlier and there was sufficient time before trial to permit discovery on that question. Recently appointed Southern District Magistrate Judge Debra Freeman held that a defendant had not waived the physician-patient privilege merely because his defense involved evidence of his physical condition, but that he had waived that privilege by voluntarily disclosing some of his medical records. Finally, Southern District Judge John S. Martin found that dismissal of plaintiff’s case was an appropriate sanction for her failure to permit the depositions of her psychotherapists.
