328 West 86th Assoc. v. Wakstein

On June 20, 2003, in 328 West 86th Assoc. v. Wakstein, Index No. L&T 081652/01 (Civ. Ct. New York Co., June 20, 2003) (Lebovits, J.H.C.), an important decision was rendered which recognizes that a party’s right to attend a deposition is not absolute. Based on Kucker Marino Winiarsky & Bittens, LLP’s motion, a party was excluded from attending a deposition. The court held, because CPLR §3103(a) obligated the court to prevent one party from being disadvantaged by the other’s potentially collusive testimony, the court may exclude individual respondents from attending pretrial depositions of other Respondents when the Respondents’ interests were virtually identical and each Respondent was represented by the same attorney.]