CPLR Committee Proposed Bill to Amend CPLR 3122

Report and proposed bill prepared by the Committee on Civil Practice Law and Rules. Approved by the Executive Commitee of the NYSBA in Nov. 1995.

Report of the Committee in Support of Proposed Bill

An act to amend the Civil Practice Law and Rules in relation to the production of documents.

Law and rule referred to: CPLR 3122

THIS BILL IS APPROVED

This is an original bill proposed by the New York State Bar Association's Committee on Civil Practice Law and Rules. It amends the Civil Practice Law and Rules to require that when documents are produced for inspection and copying, that they either be produced as they are kept in the ordinary course of business or be organized to correspond to the categories in the document request. The aim of this amendment is to make State practice with regard to the production of documents congruent with Federal practice; this proposed amendment tracks the language of the final paragraph of F.R.C.P. 34(b). Currently the CPLR is silent as to the manner in which documents of F.R.C.P. 34(b). Currently the CPLR is silent as to the manner in which documents are produced.

The aim of this amendment is to streamline and make more efficient the process of the production of documents. By imposing the requirement that documents be organized to correspond to the categories in the requests, the amendment should serve to better illuminate issues and reduce the time that litigants must devote to document discovery. When documents are produced in a disorganized manner, additional discovery is often necessary simply to ascertain which documents relate to which issue.

For the foregoing reasons, this bill is approved.

Person who prepared the report: Robert M. Kaplan, Esq.

Chair of the Committee: Paul H. Aloe, Esq.

Proposed Bill

AN ACT to amend the Civil Practice Law and Rules in relation to the production of documents for inspection.

The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows:

Section 1.

Rule 3122 o f the Civil Practice Law and Rules are hereby amended to add a new subdivision [c] to read as follows:

3122 o f the Civil Practice Law and Rules are hereby amended to add a new subdivision [c] to read as follows:

[c] whenever a person is required pursuant to such a notice or order to produce documents for inspection, that person shall produce them as they are kept in the usual course of business or shall organize and label them to correspond to the categories in the request. 2 This act shall take effect immediately.