In Anandaraja v. Icahn Sch. of Med. at Mount Sinai, No. 159045/22, 2025 WL 3028707 (N.Y. App. Div. 1 Dept. Oct. 30, 2025), the court ruled on a motion for a protective order under CPLR 3103(a) – specifically as to whether particular questions could be asked during depositions.
From the decision:
Supreme Court should have precluded deposition questions relating solely to age and gender discrimination, as all the causes of action asserting those categories of discrimination have been dismissed and therefore are no longer directly at issue in this action. The topics proposed for exclusion from depositions of defendants’ witnesses are enumerated in a letter from defendants’ counsel to plaintiffs’ counsel dated February 2, 2024, and we find that inquiry regarding topics 4–8, 10, and 13–18 listed in that letter are to be excluded from inquiry during the depositions of defendants’ witnesses. Those topics are not relevant to plaintiff Humale Khan’s hostile work environment and retaliation causes of action, which assert discrimination based only on race, religion, and national origin under the New York City Human Rights Law. Nor are topics 4–8, 10, and 13–18 relevant to plaintiff Dr. Holly Atkinson’s cause of action for breach of contract, which is the only cause of action remaining as to Dr. Atkinson.
(Cleaned up.)
The court further held that the lower court properly denied defendants’ request to preclude the remaining topics from inquiry during depositions, as defendants “did not establish that those topics were not material and necessary to the prosecution of plaintiffs’ claims” and that “[i]nquiry during depositions into those topics would not to an unreasonable extent impose on defendants any of the burdens enumerated by CPLR 3103(a).”