Relates to furnishing motion papers to the court

BILL NUMBER:S7075

Title of bill

An act to amend the civil practice law and rules, in relation to furnishing motion papers to the court

This is one in a series of measures being introduced at the request of the Chief Administrative Judge upon the recommendation of her Advisory Committee on Civil Practice.

This measure is intended to avoid the time, expense and waste of producing papers that are already in the court's possession in an e-filed case.

CPLR 2214(c), which deals with motion papers, currently requires each party to "furnish to the court all court papers served by him." However, often times a party will rely on a paper that is already available to the court, making the filing of that paper unnecessary and wasteful.

For instance, when a motion is addressed to a prior order, such as a motion for reargument, renewal or vacatur, the papers that were part of the original motion were previously filed with the court. The question that has arisen is whether these papers need to be refiled with the new motion.

Before e-filing, the papers on the original motion were not necessarily immediately available to the judge hearing the new motion, and the parties were often required to refile the papers originally submitted to make sure the judge had a complete set. With the advent of e-filing, such refilings are unnecessary, and are likely to become increasingly unnecessary as e-filing is expanded and the parties and judges become more comfortable with the e-filing system. When papers are filed electronically, the original papers can be found on the computer in the judge's chambers. This measure would avoid the need to refile papers when they are not needed, while assuring that judges will have all the papers they need to consider a motion.

The measure applies to cases that are e-filed and provides that, when papers on a motion were previously filed electronically, a party can meet the requirement of furnishing papers to the court by giving the docket numbers of the previously filed papers in the e-filing system. Thus, unnecessary duplication is avoided. Recognizing that, at this time, not all parties and judges are comfortable with electronic documents, the measure provides that even in an e-filed case the parties must comply with any court rule that differs from its provisions.

The measure responds to the decision in Biscone v. JetBlue Airways, 957 N.Y.S.2d 361 (2nd Dept. 2012), where the Second Department affirmed a Supreme Court decision denying a motion for leave to renew in a case where the moving party had cited, but not refiled, the previously e-filed documents. The Court held that, even in e-filed cases, the papers had to be resubmitted.

This measure is intended to take advantage of the attributes of electronic documents while assuring that the court has whatever paper copies it needs to decide a motion. Furthermore, it would avoid the

current uncertainty and clarify the paper requirements, so that parties are able to clearly understand their responsibilities.

This measure, which would have no fiscal impact on the public treasury, would take effect immediately.

Legislative History:

None. New Proposal.