LICHTMAN v. GIBBONS (2006)

Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Department, New York.

Marilyn LICHTMAN, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Joseph G. GIBBONS, Defendant-Respondent.

Decided: June 27, 2006

BUCKLEY, P.J., SAXE, FRIEDMAN, WILLIAMS, MALONE, JJ.

Weinberg, Gross & Pergament LLP, Garden City (Harvey Weinberg of counsel), for appellant. Law Office of Timothy J. McInnis, New York (Richard F. Bernstein of counsel), for respondent.

Order, Supreme Court, New York County (Marilyn Shafer, J.), entered November 22, 2005, which, inter alia, denied plaintiff's motion to compel disclosure, unanimously affirmed, without costs.

The validity of defendant's business deductions on Schedule C of his 2002 income tax return are irrelevant to plaintiff's claim that most of the “nonemployee compensation” reflected on a 2002 IRS Form 1099-Misc. she issued to defendant was fraudulently induced by false promises of marriage. Extrinsic evidence may not be used to impeach credibility on a collateral issue (Halloran v. Virginia Chems., 41 N.Y.2d 386, 390, 393 N.Y.S.2d 341, 361 N.E.2d 991 [1977] ). Any impeachment value of any false statements that defendant may have made to the IRS are far removed from the issues in the case, and clearly outweighed by the strong policy disfavoring disclosure of tax returns (see Matthews Indus. Piping Co. v. Mobil Oil Corp., 114 A.D.2d 772, 495 N.Y.S.2d 35 [1985] ).

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