Gym Door Repairs, Inc. et al v. Young Equipment Sales, Inc. et al

Filing 876

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER. The Magistrate Judge's Report and Recommendation denying the plaintiffs' request for Rule 11 sanctions is adopted and that motion for Rule 11 sanctions is denied. Similarly, the request by the Tri-State and Gua rdian Defendants for contempt sanctions against the plaintiffs is denied. The plaintiffs had also sought oral argument concerning these outstanding discovery issues. That request is denied. Oral argument on these issues is not warranted. The Magistra te Judges denial of the plaintiffs' request for Rule 37 sanctions against the Defendants is affirmed. The Clerk is directed to close Docket Nos. 813 and 867. So ordered. re: 867 LETTER MOTION for Oral Argument on Objections to Magistrat e's Report and Recommendations addressed to Judge John G. Koeltl from Katherine J. Daniels dated March 2, 2020 filed by Gym Door Repairs, Inc., Safepath Systems LLC, 813 MOTION for Sanctions filed by Gym Door Repairs, Inc., Stephen Cole, Kathleen Cole, Safepath Systems LLC. (Signed by Judge John G. Koeltl on 3/11/2020) (rjm)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK
───────────────────────────────────
GYM DOOR REPAIRS, INC., ET AL.,
Plaintiffs,

15-cv-4244 (JGK)
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND
ORDER

- against YOUNG EQUIPMENT SALES, INC., ET AL.,
Defendants.
───────────────────────────────────
JOHN G. KOELTL, District Judge:
The Court has reviewed the Report and Recommendation of
Magistrate Judge Wang dated January 28, 2020. In that Report,
Magistrate Judge Wang recommends that the Court deny the
plaintiffs’ request for Rule 11 sanctions against the Guardian
Defendants, the Tri-State Defendants and Carl Thurnau
(collectively, the “Defendants”). The plaintiffs had sought Rule
11 sanctions based on a small number of documents that the
plaintiffs had obtained as a result of a Freedom of Information
Law (FOIL) request by a non-party directed to the New Rochelle
School District. The plaintiffs claimed that these documents
should have been produced in discovery and supported their
opposition to the motions for summary judgment that this Court
granted against them.
The plaintiffs have filed objections to the Report and
Recommendation and therefore the court must review de novo those

portions of the Report and Recommendation to which objection has
been made. See 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(C); Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(b).
The district court may adopt those portions of the Report and
Recommendation “to which no ‘specific written objection’ is
made, as long as the factual and legal bases supporting the
findings and conclusions set forth in those sections are not
clearly erroneous or contrary to law.” Eisenberg v. New England
Motor Freight, Inc., 564 F. Supp. 2d 224, 226 (S.D.N.Y. 2008)
(citations omitted).
The brief objections filed by the plaintiffs, Dkt. No. 863,
attempt to discuss the relevance of the documents, but the
Magistrate Judge correctly noted that the documents “would not
have impacted Judge Koeltl’s summary judgment decision . . . .”
Report at 9 n. 16. More importantly, the Rule 11 motion was
improper for numerous reasons, all of which the plaintiffs
simply ignored in their objections. More particularly, their
Rule 11 motion (1) was directed to a discovery dispute rather
than to a proper subject of Rule 11; (2) failed to provide the
requisite 21 day safe harbor notice required under Rule 11; and
(3) improperly combined their Rule 11 motion with a motion under
Rule 37, rather than making their Rule 11 motion separate from
any other motion as Rule 11 requires. Any of these defects
required denial of the Rule 11 motion and the plaintiffs simply
ignored all these defects in their objections. Therefore, the
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objections are overruled. The Court adopts the well-reasoned
Report and Recommendation of Magistrate Judge Wang and denies
the plaintiffs’ motion for Rule 11 sanctions.
The Guardian and Tri-State Defendants had also moved for
contempt of court against the plaintiffs because the plaintiffs
had allegedly sought discovery through the FOIL request after
the close of discovery. The Magistrate Judge denied that request
on the grounds that the request was made by a third party and
there was an insufficient showing that such a request warranted
a contempt sanction. There was no error in the Magistrate
Judge’s conclusion, and it is unclear that any of the Defendants
have sought to overturn that conclusion. In any event, the court
finds that the denial of contempt sanctions is well-founded, and
the Court adopts the finding of the Magistrate Judge.
In an opinion also dated January 28, 2020, the Magistrate
Judge denied the plaintiffs’ request for Rule 37 sanctions based
on the alleged failure of the Defendants to produce the
documents that were disclosed as a result of the FOIL request.
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 72(a) requires this Court to set
aside any portion of the order under review “that is clearly
erroneous or is contrary to law.” As a “non-dispositive matter,”
a Magistrate Judge’s pretrial discovery ruling is reviewed under
this highly deferential standard. See Thomas E. Hoar, Inc. v.
Sara Lee Corp., 900 F.2d 522, 525 (2d Cir. 1990). An order is
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clearly erroneous if the reviewing court is “left with the
definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been
committed.” See Easley v. Cromartie, 532 U.S. 234, 242 (2001)
(citation and internal quotation marks omitted). “An order is
contrary to law when it fails to apply or misapplies relevant
statutes, case law or rules of procedure.” Thompson v. Keane,
No. 95-CV-2442 (SHS), 1996 WL 229887, at *1 (S.D.N.Y. May 6,
1996) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). See
also Frydman v. Verschleiser, No. 14-CV-8084 (JGK), 2017 WL
1155919, at *2 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 27, 2017).
It is not clear that the plaintiffs have filed a timely
appeal from the denial of sanctions under Rule 37. The
plaintiffs have not denominated their pleading as an appeal from
the Magistrate Judge’s ruling, and have referred to Rule 37 only
in the final sentence of their objections to the Magistrate
Judge’s Report and Recommendation relating to Rule 11 sanctions.
Even then, the plaintiffs do not detail any objections to the
denial of their request for Rule 37 sanctions.
In any event, in this case, far from being erroneous, the
Magistrate Judge correctly concluded that there was no basis for
imposing any sanctions under Rule 37 because the failure to
produce the documents disclosed in response to the FOIL request
would not have changed the outcome of the summary judgment
motions at all. There were numerous reasons to grant the summary
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judgment motions against the plaintiffs and the documents
produced in response to the FOIL request would not have changed
that result. Therefore, the decision of the Magistrate Judge was
not clearly erroneous or contrary to law but was plainly
correct.
CONCLUSION
The Magistrate Judge’s Report and Recommendation denying
the plaintiffs’ request for Rule 11 sanctions is adopted and
that motion for Rule 11 sanctions is denied. Similarly, the
request by the Tri-State and Guardian Defendants for contempt
sanctions against the plaintiffs is denied. The plaintiffs had
also sought oral argument concerning these outstanding discovery
issues. That request is denied. Oral argument on these issues is
not warranted.
The Magistrate Judge’s denial of the plaintiffs’ request
for Rule 37 sanctions against the Defendants is affirmed.
The Clerk is directed to close Docket Nos. 813 and 867.

SO ORDERED.
Dated:
New York, New York
March 11, 2020
___/s/ John G. Koeltl ______
John G. Koeltl
United States District Judge

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