| Law Offs. Binder & Binder, P.C. v O'Shea |
| 2007 NY Slip Op 07408 [44 AD3d 626] |
| October 2, 2007 |
| Appellate Division, Second Department |
| Law Offices Binder & Binder, P.C., Appellant, v GeraldM. O'Shea, Respondent. |
—[*1] L'Abbate, Balkan, Colavita & Contini, LLP, Garden City, N.Y. (Richard Metli of counsel),for respondent.
In an action to recover damages for breach of a commercial lease, the plaintiff appeals, aslimited by its brief, from so much of an order of the Supreme Court, Suffolk County (Weber, J.),dated October 23, 2006, as denied its motion pursuant to CPLR 3124 to compel the defendant tocomply with certain document demands and to answer an interrogatory and precluded furtherdiscovery.
Ordered that the order is modified, on the law and in the exercise of discretion, by deletingthe provision thereof which precluded further discovery; as so modified, the order is affirmedinsofar as appealed from, without costs or disbursements, and the matter is remitted to theSupreme Court, Suffolk County, for further discovery proceedings in accordance herewith.
The Supreme Court properly denied that branch of the plaintiff's motion which was tocompel the defendant to produce documents demanded in request numbers 11, 14, and 28 of theplaintiff's "demand for discovery and inspection" since those requests were overly broad orsought irrelevant documents (seeAstudillo v St. Francis-Beacon Extended Care Facility, Inc., 12 AD3d 469, 470 [2004];Latture v Smith, 304 AD2d 534, 535-536 [2003]; Bettan v Geico Gen. Ins. Co.,296 AD2d 469, 471 [2002]). The Supreme Court also properly denied that branch of theplaintiff's motion which was to compel the defendant to answer interrogatory number 16, whichasked the defendant, inter alia, to [*2]state the facts he reliedupon in support of his denials and his special or affirmative defenses. This interrogatory wasvague and overbroad, and sought privileged matter (see Gonzalez v International Bus. Machs.Corp., 236 AD2d 363, 364 [1997]; Forest Bay Homes v Kosinski, 73 AD2d 684[1979]).
The Supreme Court, however, improvidently exercised its discretion in precluding furtherdiscovery. Under the circumstances of this case, the plaintiff should have been permitted to takedepositions in order to obtain material and necessary information not adequately suppliedthrough the interrogatories and demands (see Samide v Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, 16 AD3d 482,483 [2005]; W.A.W.R., Inc. v Mohawk Finishing Prods., 94 AD2d 702 [1983]; Katzv Posner, 23 AD2d 774 [1965]). Thus, we remit the matter to the Supreme Court, SuffolkCounty, for this purpose. Rivera, J.P., Krausman, Florio, Carni and Balkin, JJ., concur.