Proportionality Carries the Day: Amended FRCP 26 Cited to Quash Overbroad Subpoenas
As practitioners are well aware, the recent amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure took effect on December 1, 2015. In one of the first applications of amended Rule 26(b)(1), Magistrate Judge James Cott in the Southern District of New York utilized it to quash several overbroad subpoenas. In Henry v. Morgan’s Hotel Group, Inc., plaintiff Phillip Henry, a gay black man, sued his former employer, defendant Morgan’s Hotel Group, for race and sexual orientation discrimination and retaliation. Henry alleged that his former supervisor routinely disparaged him with racial and homophobic remarks.