NEW YORK STATE ASSEMBLY MEMORANDUM IN SUPPORT OF LEGISLATION submitted in accordance with Assembly Rule III, Sec 1(f)
 
BILL NUMBER: A880
SPONSOR: Weprin
 
TITLE OF BILL:
An act to amend the civil practice law and rules, in relation to motions
for summary judgment
 
PURPOSE OR GENERAL IDEA OF BILL:
The purpose of this bill is to solve what has become a vexing and frus-
trating problem encountered by many attorneys: how to determine which
deadline for a summary judgment motion applies to a given case.
 
JUSTIFICATION:
CPLR 3212 (a) was amended by Chapter 492 of the Laws of 1996 in an
effort to curtail abusive motion practice, in which a motion for summary
judgment was often made immediately before trial, resulting in unwar-
ranted delay.
A principal difficulty, which has now arisen as a result of the 1996
amendments, stems from the undefined term "the court." At present, devi-
ations from the 120-day post-Note-of-Issue ("NoI") default deadline may
be found in County rules, part rules, individual judge's rules, and
decisions within each case. The information, where published, is diffi-
cult to locate and may not be up-to-date.
Since the Court of Appeals' decision in Brill v City of New York, 2 NY3d
648 (2004) held that a failure to comply with the applicable rule
renders the motion fatally defective, absent "good cause" shown for the
delay, this legislation is needed to make identification of and compli-
ance with the appropriate deadline less burdensome. Indeed, the
confusion has already engendered inconsistent Appellate Division deci-
sions on whether confusion concerning the applicable rule is itself
"good cause" for missing the shorter deadline (contrast Crawford v Liz
Claiborne, Inc., 45 A.D.3d 284 1St Dept. 2007, with Gomez v Penmark
Realty Corp., 50 A.0.3d 607 1St Dept. 2008), and the Court of Appeals'
decision in Crawford v Liz Claiborne, Inc., 2008 NY Slip Op 07989
(10/23/08), had to parse the language of two conflicting rules to find
that Brill did not apply.
This amendment would limit the search for a deadline shorter than the
statutory default to one place: the prior Orders in the specific case.
It also serves the salutary function of allowing Judges more flexibility
in setting summary judgment deadlines, taking into account factors
unique to each case, such as its complexities, outstanding discovery,
number of parties, and the number of parties seeking summary judgment,
as well as considerations which may change with time, such as current
trial calendar congestion.
 
LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:
02/08/17 referred to codes 01/03/18 referred to codes
 
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:
This bill would have no financial impact on the State.
 
EFFECTIVE DATE:
This act shall take effect immediately upon its becoming law and shall
apply to all actions pending or commenced on and after such date.
STATE OF NEW YORK
________________________________________________________________________
880
2023-2024 Regular Sessions
IN ASSEMBLY
January 11, 2023
___________
Introduced by M. of A. WEPRIN -- read once and referred to the Committee
on Codes
AN ACT to amend the civil practice law and rules, in relation to motions
for summary judgment
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem-bly, do enact as follows:
1 Section 1. Subdivision (a) of rule 3212 of the civil practice law and
2 rules, as amended by chapter 492 of the laws of 1996, is amended to read
3 as follows:
4 (a) Time; kind of action. Any party may move for summary judgment in
5 any action, after issue has been joined; provided however, that the
6 court by order specific to the case may set a date after which no such
7 motion may be made, such date being no earlier than thirty days after
8 the filing of the note of issue. If no such date is set by the court,
9 such motion shall be made no later than one hundred twenty days after
10 the filing of the note of issue, except with leave of court on good
11 cause shown.
12 § 2. This act shall take effect immediately and shall apply to all
13 actions pending or commenced on and after such effective date.
EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
[] is old law to be omitted.
LBD01533-01-3