Milliken & Co. v. City of New York

What this case was about

This dispute arose out of the August 1983 water-main break at Seventh Avenue and 38th Street in Manhattan, which flooded a Consolidated Edison substation, sparked an electrical fire, and blacked out the garment center for several days. Milliken & Co. and dozens of other businesses filed property-damage and lost-business claims against the City. The procedural question that reached the Court of Appeals was how far the City's pre-suit investigation of those claims could go: the City Comptroller had served demands and subpoenas seeking extensive financial and business records. The Appellate Division held that a General Municipal Law § 50-h examination of a claimant is limited to oral questions and that the Comptroller had no authority to compel production of documents by subpoena duces tecum in a tort case, so it quashed the subpoenas and vacated the document demands. In this memorandum decision the Court of Appeals unanimously affirmed for the reasons stated in the Appellate Division's memorandum.

Gair’s role

Counsel for the respondents — Milliken & Co. and the other claimant businesses — who prevailed below and defeated the City's appeal.

Frederick A. O. Schwarz, Jr., Corporation Counsel (Philip Agree, Stephen J. McGrath and Michael McLoughlin of counsel), for appellant. Jeffrey B. Bloom for respondents.

Attorneys on this matter

Full opinion

Reproduced from the public court record.