On Thursday, Judge Oetken granted defendant Wells Fargo’s motion for summary judgment in a derivative action brought on behalf of the now-defunct Lifetrade investment fund. Despite granting the motion, Judge Oetken explained in a footnote that the parties’ 56.1 statements were improper.

The Court noted that the parties submitted a collective 879 pages of “unnecessary, redundant, and improper 56.1 filings.” Specifically, both parties repeatedly disputed facts they admitted were true, and then, in response to each others’ statements, added repetitive boilerplate language “taking issue with the false disputes” that, while legally correct, “only amplified the problem.”

Judge Oetken set out his expectations:

As other courts in this district have already observed, such flagrant disregard of the Court’s Rules cannot stand. The net result of counsel’s deficiencies has been to impose on the Court and its limited resources the burden of parsing the entirety of the voluminous record in the case to ensure that [their] client’s claims receive thorough and just consideration. In the future, it simply will not do for counsel to say that genuine issues of material fact exist and then rely on the Court to go find them. Much more is expected from an experienced member of the bar of this Court and will henceforth be strictly required.

On Thursday, Judge Vernon S. Broderick denied Major League Baseball’s motion to stay discovery in a sexual harassment and gender bias lawsuit filed by two aspiring umpires employed by MLB. The prospective umpires’ second amended complaint, filed in November, asserts hostile-work-environment, wrongful termination, and retaliation claims under the New York State Human Rights Law, the New York City Human Rights Law, and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. In December, MLB filed a motion to dismiss certain of the plaintiffs’ claims, to sever plaintiffs’ claims, and to transfer each plaintiff’s remaining claims out of the Southern District of New York.

On January 3, MLB filed a motion to stay discovery in the case, arguing that its motions to dismiss, sever and transfer provided sufficient grounds on which to pause discovery until the motions were decided. Judge Broderick denied MLB’s motion to stay, finding that MLB had not shown good cause to pause discovery.

Continue Reading Judge Broderick Refuses To Stay Discovery in Suit Against Major League Baseball

In an Order yesterday, Judge Torres took issue with the “relentless” filings of counsel for Sean Carter (known professionally as Jay-Z) in a case accusing Mr. Carter and Sean Combs of abusing the plaintiff, a minor at the time of the alleged incident.

Mr. Carter was added to the case in an amendment on December 9, and his lawyer filed letters on December 9, December 10, and December 13, followed by an emergency motion on December 18, all of which argued that the case was meritless and attacked counsel for the plaintiff (who, for his part, responded with a letter on December 20).

Judge Torres was not amused by the “litany” of filings by Mr. Carter’s counsel and suggested that they were a disservice to Mr. Carter:

Continue Reading Judge Torres Refuses to “Fast-Track” Abuse Case In Response to “Relentless” Filings from Jay-Z’s Counsel

On Wednesday, in a case brought by the individuals who were falsely convicted of the assassination of Malcolm X in 1965, Judge Ho denied the government’s motion to dismiss with regard to plaintiffs’ malicious prosecution claims because sovereign immunity is waived under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA).

Under a 1974 amendment to the FTCA, sovereign immunity is waived for malicious prosecution claims arising after the amendment, i.e., for claims arising after March 16, 1974. In his decision, Judge Ho considered for the first time in this court whether a malicious prosecution claim “arises” for the purposes of the FTCA when the prosecution takes place or when the claimant is exonerated. This case offered the unique situation where the wrongful conviction occurred before 1974, but the exoneration occurred after.

Continue Reading Judge Ho: Malicious Prosecution Claims Do Not “Arise” Under FTCA Until Exoneration

In a follow-up to Magistrate Judge Wang’s discovery order last week, in which the court denied defendants Microsoft and OpenAI’s motion to compel discovery for lack of relevance, on Monday Magistrate Judge Wang granted plaintiff New York Times’ motion to compel discovery, in part, to require the production of direct messages from defendants’ employees on X.com.

Continue Reading Magistrate Judge Wang: State Law Prohibiting Employers’ Access to Employees’ Social Media Does Not Circumvent Federal Discovery

On Friday, Magistrate Judge Wang denied a motion to compel discovery brought by defendants Microsoft Corporation and OpenAI in an action relating to defendants’ use of plaintiff New York Times’ copyrighted works to train defendants’ large-language models.

Defendants sought to compel the production of plaintiff’s use of, and statements about, AI tools, asserting the evidence was relevant to their fair use defense. Plaintiff argued that the request was “neither relevant nor proportional to the needs of the case.”

Continue Reading Magistrate Judge Wang: New York Times’ AI Use Not Relevant to Microsoft’s Fair Use Defense

On Monday, Judge Karas granted in part and denied in part the parties’ cross-motions for summary judgment of a Section 1983 claim by Santander against the City of Yonkers, relating to the impounding and subsequent sale of a vehicle on which Santander held a lien. In a footnote, the court noted that defendants failed to submit a 56.1 statement in support of their motion for summary judgment and that their 56.1 counterstatement had numerous deficiencies. The court declined to deny summary judgment on these grounds, but broadly discredited defendants’ denials and cautioned the parties against ignoring compliance with local rules.

Continue Reading Judge Karas: Compliance with Local Rules “Not a Matter to be Taken Lightly”

Last week, Judge Liman issued an opinion and order noting in a footnote that, although plaintiff had filed her opposition one day late, the court would still accept the filing. 

Initially, the defendant argued on reply that plaintiff’s opposition “should be disregarded” due to the delay. In response, the plaintiff “belatedly moved for leave to file a late opposition” and explained that counsel “had been traveling overseas, miscalendared the response date, and did not realize the response was late until this was pointed out by Defendant’s reply.”

Judge Liman ultimately agreed to grant plaintiff’s motion for leave to file a late opposition:

Continue Reading Judge Liman: “Weak” Excuse Still Justified One-Day Late Opposition

Judge Keenan, SDNY judge since 1983, died Sunday at the age of 94.

The N.Y. Times obituary begins:

John F. Keenan, a longtime federal judge in Manhattan who presided over the high-profile trials of Bess Meyerson, a popular former cultural-affairs commissioner in New York City and ex-beauty queen, and Imelda Marcos, the extravagant former first lady of the Philippines, died on Sunday at his home in the Bronx.

The N.Y. Law Journal has published an obituary, as well (see here).