Collymore v. City Of New York et al.

Filing 175

ORDER: The Court has reviewed Plaintiff's remaining arguments and finds none of them meritorious. Accordingly, the Court finds that Plaintiff fails to identify any clear error or erroneous application of the law by Judge Wang with regard t o her orders dated September 14, 2020, September 16, 2020, September 18, 2020, October 19, 2020, and April 30, 2021 (docket entry nos. 123, 125, 129, 145, 171), and the Court overrules Plaintiff's objections to those orders. So Ordered. (Signed by Judge Laura Taylor Swain on 6/3/2021) (js)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK
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ROBIN COLLYMORE,
Plaintiff,
-v-

No. 16-CV-8270-LTS-OTW

CITY OF NEW YORK, LISA MALUF,
MATTHEW AUSTIN, and DAVID KIRKS,
in their individual capacities and as aiders and
abettors,
Defendants.
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ORDER
Plaintiff Robin Collymore (“Plaintiff”) has filed four sets of objections (docket
entry nos. 126, 130, 146, 172) to Magistrate Judge Wang’s orders dated September 14, 2020,
September 16, 2020, September 18, 2020, October 19, 2020, and April 30, 2021 (docket entry
nos. 123, 125, 129, 145, 171), all of which principally concern Judge Wang’s resolution of the
parties’ discovery disputes. The Court has jurisdiction of this action pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§
1331, 1343, and 1367. The Court has considered carefully the parties’ submissions and
arguments filed in connection with Plaintiff’s objections and, for the following reasons,
Plaintiff’s objections are overruled, and Judge Wang’s discovery orders will stand.
Familiarity with the facts of this case, which are set forth in the Court’s prior
orders, see Collymore v. City of New York, No. 16-CV-8270-(LTS), 2018 WL 3014093
(S.D.N.Y. June 14, 2018), aff’d in part, vacated in part, remanded, 767 F. App’x 42 (2d Cir.
2019), is presumed, as is familiarity with the procedural background of Judge Wang’s orders and
Plaintiff’s objections to those orders.

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When a party objects to a magistrate judge’s non-dispositive order, the district
court must review the objections and “modify or set aside any part of the order that is clearly
erroneous or is contrary to law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(a); 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(A). A decision is
clearly erroneous where “the reviewing court on the entire evidence is left with the definite and
firm conviction that a mistake has been committed.” Gualandi v. Adams, 385 F.3d 236, 240 (2d
Cir. 2004) (citation omitted). An order is “contrary to law when it fails to apply or misapplies
relevant statutes, case law or rules of procedure.” Knitting Fever, Inc. v. Coats Holding Ltd., No.
05-CV-1065 (DRH) (MLO), 2005 WL 3050299, at *3 (E.D.N.Y. Nov. 14, 2005) (internal
quotation marks and citation omitted). This standard of review is “highly deferential”;
“magistrate judges are afforded broad discretion in resolving nondispositive disputes and
reversal is appropriate only if their discretion is abused.” Thai Lao Lignite (Thailand) Co. v.
Gov’t of Lao People’s Democratic Republic, 924 F. Supp. 2d 508, 511-12 (S.D.N.Y. 2013)
(internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Such deference is particularly appropriate
where, as here, a party challenges a magistrate judge’s resolution of the parties’ discovery
disputes. Marquez v. Hoffman, No. 18-CV-7315 (ALC) (GWG), 2019 WL 5940151, at *2
(S.D.N.Y. Oct. 25, 2019) (“Because [a] magistrate judge is best qualified to judge the entire
atmosphere of the discovery process . . . [her] rulings on discovery matters are entitled to
substantial deference.”) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted); Walker v. Carter, No.
12-CV-5384 (ALC) (RLE), 2016 WL 6820554, at *2 (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 4, 2016) (“A magistrate
judge has broad discretion to manage discovery disputes.”).
The Court has reviewed Plaintiff’s objections, and, applying this deferential
standard of review, concludes that none of the challenged orders were clearly erroneous or
contrary to law.

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As an initial matter, several of Plaintiff’s objections are directed merely to the
wording of Judge Wang’s orders, to the threat of Court-issued sanctions which never
materialized, or to the Court-ordered scheduling of depositions which (many months later) have
still not occurred. (See docket entry no. 126 at 1, 4-5; docket entry no. 130 at 1-5; docket entry
no. 172 at 1.) To the extent these challenges are not moot, the Court declines to disturb Judge
Wang’s oversight of the schedule of discovery or her references to potential sanctions if the
parties fail to comply with that schedule. See, e.g., Frydman v. Verschleiser, No. 14-CV-8084
(JGK) (JLC), 2017 WL 1155919, at *4 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 27, 2017) (“Magistrate Judge Cott acted
within his discretion in enforcing the discovery schedule. . . . The parties were obliged to follow
it, and to live with the potentially ‘severe’ consequences if they failed to do so.”) (citation
omitted).
Plaintiff’s objections dated November 2, 2020 (docket entry no. 146, the “Nov. 12
Objs.”), to Judge Wang’s order dated October 19, 2020 (docket entry no. 145), raise four more
specific issues, but none has merit. First, Judge Wang’s failure to issue an eDiscovery plan (see
Nov. 12 Objs. at 6-7) was not clearly erroneous or contrary to law where Plaintiff has not
identified any rule or case law requiring the entry of such a plan. Second, Plaintiff’s request for
sanctions stemming from Defendants’ alleged failure to preserve electronically stored
information (see id. at 7-8) was not raised in Plaintiff’s briefing leading to the October 19, 2020,
order and the Court declines to consider it for the first time in the context of Plaintiff’s Rule
72(a) objection. See Harris v. TD Ameritrade Inc., 338 F. Supp. 3d 170, 174 (S.D.N.Y. 2018)
(“To the extent that this objection raises a new legal argument for the first time, the Court finds
that Harris has not presented a ‘compelling justification for failure to present such [arguments] to
the magistrate judge’ and the Court declines to consider it at this stage.” (citation omitted)).

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Third, the Court finds no error in Judge Wang’s determinations concerning the relevance and
proportionality of Plaintiff’s requests for production of documents (see Nov. 12 Objs. at 8-9),
especially since Defendants produced some, though not all, of the comparator information
requested by Plaintiff in response to the requests for production at issue. See Yoo v. Actimize,
Inc., No. 12-CV-8108 (VSB), 2014 WL 1087974, at *1-2 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 19, 2014) (noting a
magistrate judge’s discretion in determining the scope of discoverable comparator information in
an employment discrimination case, and declining to disturb the magistrate judge’s limitations
on that discovery). Fourth, Plaintiff has not shown that Judge Wang clearly erred in concluding
that not all of Defendants’ documents “hit” by the parties’ agreed-to search terms are necessarily
responsive to Plaintiff’s discovery requests (see Nov. 12 Objs. at 9-10). See also Moore v.
Publicis Groupe, 287 F.R.D. 182, 191 (S.D.N.Y. 2012) (“Another problem with keywords is that
they often are over-inclusive, that is, they find responsive documents but also large numbers of
irrelevant documents. In this case, for example, a keyword search for ‘training’ resulted in
165,208 hits . . .”).
The Court has reviewed Plaintiff’s remaining arguments and finds none of them
meritorious. Accordingly, the Court finds that Plaintiff fails to identify any clear error or
erroneous application of the law by Judge Wang with regard to her orders dated September 14,
2020, September 16, 2020, September 18, 2020, October 19, 2020, and April 30, 2021 (docket
entry nos. 123, 125, 129, 145, 171), and the Court overrules Plaintiff’s objections to those orders.
SO ORDERED.
Dated: New York, New York
June 3, 2021

COLLYMORE - ORD RE OBJECTIONS.DOCX

/s/ Laura Taylor Swain
LAURA TAYLOR SWAIN
Chief United States District Judge

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