Opinion
April 5, 1990
Appeal from the Supreme Court, New York County (Beverly Cohen, J.).
The scope of disclosure as to a nonparty, such as Westinghouse herein, is governed by CPLR 3101 (a), which provides, in pertinent part, that
"[t]here shall be full disclosure of all evidence material and necessary in the prosecution or defense of an action, regardless of burden of proof, by * * *
"(4) any other person [nonparty], upon notice stating the circumstances or reasons such disclosure is sought or required".
This provision has been liberally construed to give effect to the strong policy favoring full disclosure to adequately prepare for trial (Allen v. Crowell-Collier Publ. Co., 21 N.Y.2d 403; Slabakis v. Drizin, 107 A.D.2d 45; Johnson v. National R.R. Passenger Corp., 83 A.D.2d 916).
Upon review of the record, we find that the movants satisfied the requirements for nonparty discovery by establishing the relevance, materiality and necessity of the documents and items demanded from nonparty Westinghouse to the pending litigation. Specifically, plaintiff sought to recover from its insurers, defendants herein, for damages it sustained as a result of problems experienced with a hydrogen-cooled turbine generator on its property; equipment designed, sold, delivered, installed, inspected, maintained, serviced and tested by nonparty Westinghouse Electric Corporation (Desai v. Blue Shield, 128 A.D.2d 1021). Finally, the conclusory statements by Westinghouse's counsel in opposition to the respective motions to compel disclosure that the information sought constitutes trade secrets does not establish Westinghouse's entitlement to a confidentiality order. In that connection, the burden of proving that an item should not be produced during discovery is placed upon the party seeking to avoid such discovery (Koump v. Smith, 25 N.Y.2d 287; Crazytown Furniture v. Brooklyn Union Gas Co., 145 A.D.2d 402; Rooney v. Hunter, 26 A.D.2d 891).
Concur — Kupferman, J.P., Milonas, Asch, Kassal and Smith, JJ.