KAPLAN v. HERBSTEIN, N.Y. App. Div., Judgment, Law, casemine.com

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Factual and Procedural Background

This appeal arises from an order of the Supreme Court, Queens County, concerning discovery and disclosure issues in a medical malpractice context. The plaintiff, Linda Kaplan as Executrix of Joel Kaplan, deceased, sought disclosure of fee schedule information in a contract involving the defendant Booth Memorial Medical Center and a radiology group headed by appellant Barry Held and including other appellants. The trial court supervised the disclosure and set terms and conditions for it, which were challenged on appeal.

Legal Issues Presented

Whether the trial court abused its discretion in supervising disclosure and setting reasonable terms and conditions for the production of fee schedule information in the contract relevant to the case.
Whether the fee schedule information sought is material and relevant to determining the degree of control exercised by Booth Memorial Medical Center over the radiology group and thus relevant to vicarious liability for negligence.

Arguments of the Parties

The opinion does not contain a detailed account of the parties' legal arguments.

Table of Precedents Cited

Precedent	Rule or Principle Cited For	Application by the Court
Matter of U.S. Pioneer Elec. Corp. [Nikko Elec. Corp.], 47 N.Y.2d 914, 916	Trial court's discretion in supervising disclosure and setting terms for discovery	Supported the principle that the trial court's supervision of disclosure rests within its sound discretion
Boylin v Eagle Telephonics, 130 A.D.2d 538	Trial court's discretion in discovery matters	Reinforced the standard that absent improvident exercise of discretion, discovery rulings will not be disturbed
Cable v IBM Corp., 101 A.D.2d 799	Standard for appellate review of discovery rulings	Confirmed that appellate courts will not disturb trial court discretion unless improvident
PCB Piezotronics v Change, 163 A.D.2d 829	Review of discovery supervision discretion	Supported the trial court's discretion in managing discovery matters
Kavanaugh v Nussbaum, 71 N.Y.2d 535, 547	Relevance of control to vicarious liability in medical malpractice	Applied to establish that fee schedule information may bear on Booth Memorial Medical Center's vicarious liability
Hill v St. Clare's Hosp., 67 N.Y.2d 72, 79	Determining vicarious liability based on degree of control	Used to support relevance of contract terms to liability issues
Mertsaris v 73rd Corp., 105 A.D.2d 67, 80	Vicarious liability and control in medical settings	Supported the materiality of the fee schedule to control and liability
Mduba v Benedictine Hosp., 52 A.D.2d 450	Vicarious liability and contractual control	Used as precedent for relevance of contract information to liability determination

Court's Reasoning and Analysis

The court emphasized that supervision of disclosure and the setting of reasonable terms for discovery are within the trial court's sound discretion. The appellate court will not disturb such determinations absent a clear showing of improvident exercise of discretion. Here, the court found no such improvident exercise. The fee schedule information in the contract was deemed potentially material and relevant to assessing the degree of control exercised by Booth Memorial Medical Center over the radiology group, which is pertinent to the issue of the medical center's vicarious liability for negligence committed by a member of that group. The court relied on established precedents that link control over medical practitioners to vicarious liability and found the disclosure appropriate under these principles.

Holding and Implications

The court affirmed the order insofar as appealed from, with costs.

The decision upholds the trial court's discretion in supervising discovery and confirms the materiality of contract fee schedule information in assessing vicarious liability in medical malpractice. The ruling directly affects the parties by allowing the contested disclosure to proceed but does not establish new precedent beyond reaffirming existing standards of review and relevance in discovery.

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LINDA KAPLAN, as Executrix of JOEL KAPLAN, Deceased, Respondent, v. DIEGO HERBSTEIN et al., Defendants, and GREGORY CARSEN et al., Appellants.

Ordered that the order is affirmed insofar as appealed from, with costs.

It is well settled that the supervision of disclosure and the setting of reasonable terms and conditions therefor rests within the sound discretion of the trial court (see, Matter of U.S. Pioneer Elec. Corp. [Nikko Elec. Corp.], 47 N.Y.2d 914, 916; Boylin v Eagle Telephonics, 130 A.D.2d 538) and, absent an improvident exercise of that discretion, its determination will not be disturbed (see, Cable v IBM Corp., 101 A.D.2d 799; see also, PCB Piezotronics v Change, 163 A.D.2d 829). We find that no improvident exercise of discretion has been demonstrated in the instant matter. The fee schedule information contained in the contract sought by the plaintiff may be material and relevant to determining the degree of control exercised by the defendant Booth Memorial Medical Center over the radiology group headed by the appellant Barry Held. The group also apparently included the appellants Robert Meisell, Alex Tallis, Lawrence Schechter, and William Wolff. This information may, therefore, bear upon the issue of Booth Memorial Medical Center's vicarious liability for the negligence of an individual member of the radiology group (see, Kavanaugh v Nussbaum, 71 N.Y.2d 535, 547; Hill v St. Clare's Hosp., 67 N.Y.2d 72, 79; Mertsaris v 73rd Corp., 105 A.D.2d 67, 80; Mduba v Benedictine Hosp., 52 A.D.2d 450). Accordingly, the order is affirmed insofar as appealed from. Thompson, J.P., Eiber, Balletta and Ritter, JJ., concur.

KAPLAN v. HERBSTEIN