Opinion
01-07450
Submitted May 1, 2002
May 28, 2002.
In an action to recover damages for personal injuries, the defendants appeal from an order of the Supreme Court, Nassau County (Segal, J.), entered July 3, 2001, which denied their motion, inter alia, to compel the plaintiff to comply with a demand for authorizations.
Robert P. Tusa, Yonkers, N.Y. (David Holmes of counsel), for appellants.
Jeffrey Gross, Great Neck, N.Y., for respondent.
FRED T. SANTUCCI, J.P., NANCY E. SMITH, GABRIEL M. KRAUSMAN, HOWARD MILLER, THOMAS A. ADAMS, JJ.
DECISION ORDER
ORDERED that the order is affirmed, with costs.
While CPLR 3101(a) provides for full disclosure of all evidence material and necessary to the prosecution or defense of an action, unlimited disclosure is not required, and supervision of disclosure is generally left to the trial court's broad discretion (see Allen v. Crowell-Collier Pub. Co., 21 N.Y.2d 403, 406; Argumedo v. 303 Tenants Corp., 246 A.D.2d 616; City of Mount Vernon v. Lexington Ins. Co., 232 A.D.2d 358; Buonaccorso v. City of New York, 208 A.D.2d 791). Here, the medical records sought to be obtained from the file of the attorneys who represented the plaintiff in a prior accident were duplicative of material provided through prior authorizations (see CPLR 3101[d]; Buonaccorso v. City of New York, supra; Starling v. Warshowski, 148 A.D.2d 441). Furthermore, the defendants did not show that the plaintiff commenced an action regarding her prior accident, or that the requested papers regarding this purported prior lawsuit even exist (see Argumedo v. 303 Tenants Corp., supra; Fascaldi v. Fascaldi, 209 A.D.2d 578; Fallon v. CBS, Inc., 124 A.D.2d 697). In any event, production of documents in a prior action should not be compelled to the extent that they are available as a matter of public record (see Penn Palace Operating v. Two Penn Plaza Assocs., 215 A.D.2d 231; Benson v. Murr, 23 A.D.2d 756).
SANTUCCI, J.P., SMITH, KRAUSMAN, H. MILLER and ADAMS, JJ., concur.