LESLIE DIGITAL IMAGING LLC LDI v. EMPOWER INFORMATION SYSTEMS INC (2025)

Orders, Supreme Court, New York County (Barry R. Ostrager, J.), entered on or about October 3 and October 30, 2023, which, to the extent appealed from, granted plaintiff's motion for sanctions against defendants in the amount of $10,000 and sanctioned defendants an additional $10,000 for failure to comply with the October 3 order, unanimously reversed, on the law, without costs, the motion denied and the sanctions vacated.

While we do not condone defendant's conduct during discovery, we must reverse the sanction orders.  The court improvidently imposed the sanctions on defendants.  The orders did not indicate why the $10,0000 amount imposed was appropriate in either instance (see Matter of Kings County Hosp. v. M.R., 226 A.D.3d 513, 514, 209 N.Y.S.3d 362 [1st Dept. 2024]), and the alleged discovery failures upon which they were based were not “so egregious as to be frivolous” within the meaning of 22 NYCRR 130–1.1(c) (Junmei Zhang v. City of New York, 222 A.D.3d 445, 446, 199 N.Y.S.3d 70 [1st Dept. 2023]).

Further, even if defendants’ discovery responses were inadequate or untimely, the record does not “conclusively show[ ] that these failures were willful or contumacious” (Marvin E. Goldberg, P.C. v. Law Offs. of Raymond Schwartzberg & Assoc., PLLC, 216 A.D.3d 547, 547, 187 N.Y.S.3d 660 [1st Dept. 2023];  see CPLR 3126).