Legal Update
Jun 16, 2020
Litigation Developments Regarding Child Victim Act Cases
On June 16 2020, Hon. George Silver—the Presiding Judge over all pre-trial practice concerning any Child Victim Act (“CVA”) cases filed in New York City—issued Case Management Order # 2 (the “CMO”). The CMO, just as CMO # 1,1 was drafted by a joint CVA Steering Committee consisting of plaintiffs’ liaison counsel and defense liaison counsel. The CMO addresses scheduling and automatic discovery procedures for CVA cases and sets forth new, extended deadlines for responding to complaints and pending motions.
The new responsive deadlines set forth in the CMO were issued as a result of the numerous tolling extensions issued by Governor Cuomo pursuant to several Executive Orders since March. Just last week, on June 6, 2020, the Governor issued Executive Order 202.38, which further extended, by another 30 days, the time to answer or respond to any pending complaints (among other things), which includes any Answer or Motion to Dismiss in CVA cases. In anticipation of the tolls not being extended further, the CMO serves to memorialize and standardize the precise responsive deadlines in CVA cases and thereby avoid any confusion or disagreement regarding when Answers or Motions to Dismiss are due.
With regard to deadlines for responding to complaints, the CMO sets forth a rolling schedule as to the date defendants are to answer or otherwise respond to a complaint based upon the date that a complaint was served on a defendant. The CMO also sets forth new deadlines for parties to respond to pending motions. These new deadlines supersede the deadlines contained in CMO #1.
Finally, the CMO also includes, as attachments, form Standard Automatic Disclosures, a Common Demand for a Bill of Particulars, and Standard Combined Demands, which are all deemed served on parties to CVA cases as of the date that a defendant responds to a complaint. The CMO also establishes the process and deadlines for responding to such automatic discovery. While the expectation is that parties to a CVA action use the automatic discovery, every litigant is permitted to (a) supplement the automatic discovery as is necessary based on the particular needs and issues of their case and (b) object based upon proper grounds to items in the automatic discovery requests.
1. Our alert regarding the CMO #1 is available here.