Opinion
570009/04.
Decided March 17, 2005.
Plaintiff, as limited by her briefs, appeals from so much of a compliance conference order of the Civil Court, New York County, entered November 6, 2003 (Joan M. Kenney, J.) as required her to proceed with the disclosure process by interrogatories, rather than by oral depositions, and otherwise denied her request for further discovery, and 2) from an order of the same court and Judge entered November 6, 2003 which denied plaintiff's motion seeking, in effect, to vacate or modify the aforesaid compliance conference order.
Order entered November 6, 2003 (Joan M. Kenney, J.), which denied plaintiff's motion seeking, in effect, to vacate or modify the court's compliance conference order, affirmed, with $10 costs.
Appeal from compliance conference order entered November 6, 2003 (Joan M. Kenney, J.) dismissed, without costs, as nonappealable ( see Koczen v. VMR Corp., 300 AD2d 285).
PRESENT: HON. WILLIAM P. McCOOE, J.P., HON. WILLIAM J. DAVIS HON. MARTIN SCHOENFELD, Justices.
Although a party is generally free to choose the disclosure devices it wishes to use and the order in which it uses them, the courts "may direct the priority by which a party may use the disclosure devices, if it finds on the particular facts that expedition will result from the use of one device prior to another" ( Barouh Eaton Allen Corp. v. International Bus. Machs. Corp., 76 AD2d 873, 874-875). Here, the court's discretionary ruling that the out-of-State plaintiff proceed by way of interrogatories instead of oral depositions was proper, since under the facts of this long-pending medical malpractice action potentially involving the testimony of a substantial, but as yet undetermined number of the defendant hospital's medical, nursing, and administrative employees, the court's determination will expedite the discovery process ( id., see also Siegel, Practice Commentaries, McKinney's Cons Laws of NY, Book 7B, CPLR 3101:2, CPLR 3130:1). Nor has plaintiff otherwise shown that, in denying the balance of her request for further discovery, the motion court improperly exercised its broad discretion respecting the conduct of pretrial discovery.
This constitutes the decision and order of the court.