On March 16, 2023, the First Department issued a decision in Buttar v. Elite Limousine Plus, Inc., 2023 NY Slip Op. 01355, refusing to order plaintiffs to produce tax returns when they had not made a general claim for lost earnings, explaining:
The motion court providently denied the Elite defendants’ motion to vacate or modify an order denying discovery of tax documents associated with plaintiffs’ collateral employment. Plaintiffs, livery cab drivers, do not make a general claim of lost earnings and therefore did not put their entire incomes at issue. Instead, plaintiffs claim that the Elite defendants violated the terms of their franchise agreements by manipulating their software to dispatch and favor drivers who were connected to defendant Chaudhary, Elite’s president. Accordingly, information concerning whether plaintiffs accepted employment from other companies is irrelevant to the Elite defendants’ defense against plaintiffs’ claims. Furthermore, the Elite defendants can defend against plaintiffs’ claims using already disclosed income tax returns, 1099s generated by Elite and defendant First Corporate Sedans, Inc., and data from Elite’s own software that tracked driver log-in and log-out times, assignments, and job wait times.
(Internal citations omitted).