(Download) "Arett Sales Corp. v. Island Garden Center Queens" by Supreme Court of New York # eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Arett Sales Corp. v. Island Garden Center Queens
- Author : Supreme Court of New York
- Release Date : January 21, 1966
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 69 KB
Description
As this court stated in Lonigro v. Baltimore & Ohio R. R. Co. (22 A.D.2d 918): ""the right of a corporate defendant to select, in the first instance, the person with knowledge of the accident by whom it will be examined, has not been changed by the enactment of CPLR (3101 et seq.)."" Here, plaintiffs' notices for pretrial examination attempted to take this right away from defendant corporations by naming the officer to be examined. This should not have been permitted. In addition, the notices called for the production of ""All books, records, correspondence, copies of correspondence, checks, notes, bills, invoices, memoranda and any and all other documents relating to transactions between"" the parties. In our opinion, this array of documents exceeded the requirements for a pretrial examination and the bounds intended by the statute (CPLR 3111). CPLR 3111 is to be distinguished from CPLR 3120, which provides for a general discovery of all books and papers relating to the merits of the action (see Rios v. Donovan, 21 A.D.2d 409; 3 Weinstein-Korn-Miller, N. Y. Civ. Prac., par. 3120.03). Plaintiffs' notices were tantamount to demands for general discovery. Orderly procedure dictates that the pretrial examinations be held and defendants produce any records, etc., necessary to aid in such an examination before any further attempt at discovery (Lonigro v. Baltimore & Ohio R. R. Co., supra). With respect to the demands for bills of particulars, it is our opinion that plaintiffs' requests (in each item 8) for an ""itemized statement of the nature and amount of the damage"" were improper. The damages sought by defendants in their counterclaims were general in nature, i.e., they were such as would be presumed to flow naturally from the injuries alleged. General damages need not be pleaded; more important, they need not be disclosed in response to a demand for a bill of particulars (Wolff v. Hubert, 200 App. Div. 124). We also feel that it would be more proper to ask defendants to supply the ""approximate"" date of any alleged oral representations or agreements (items 1, 4 [c]; 1, 4 [d]). This is more than sufficient for plaintiffs' purposes, especially since defendants will be required to set forth the ""substance"" of any such representations or agreements (see Weisinger v. Berfond, 7 A.D.2d 1025).