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.