The New York Commercial Division was founded in 1993 “to test whether it would be possible, by concentrating on commercial litigation, to improve the efficiency with which such matters were addressed by the court and, at the same time, to enhance the quality of judicial treatment of those cases.” Among other things, its continual adoption of innovative new rules and amendments to existing rules has elevated the Commercial Division to being one of the world’s most efficient venues for the resolution of commercial disputes.

In our last installment of this blog’s Check the Rules series, we looked at the Commercial Division Advisory Council’s proposed amendment to Commercial Division Rule 17 concerning length of papers, along with some recent support from Commercial Division judges, including Justice Saliann Scarpulla of the Manhattan Commercial Division, whose decisions have taken lawyers to task for being long-winded.

It turns out that Justice Scarpulla also is an advocate of the efficiency associated with pretrial evidentiary hearings and immediate trials on material issues of fact under CPLR §§ 2218, 3211 (c), and 3212 (c), which, according to the Advisory Council in a recent new-rule proposal, are “significantly underutilized” and provide “yet another tool to help efficiently dispose of commercial disputes.”

Under the Advisory Council’s proposed new Rule 9-a, which essentially reinforces a court’s existing authority under the aforementioned CPLR provisions to direct evidentiary hearings, “parties are encouraged to demonstrate on a motion to the court when a pre-trial evidentiary hearing or immediate trial may be effective in resolving a factual issue sufficient to effect the disposition of a material fact of the case.” The proposed rule sets forth specific examples of such motions, including dispositive motions to dismiss and for summary judgment; preliminary-injunction motions; spoliation of evidence motions; jurisdictional motions; statute of limitations motions; and class action certification motions.

The idea behind proposed new Rule 9-a is to “expedite and streamline . . . questions of improper notice or other jurisdictional defects or dispositive defenses,” so as to avoid the kind of “litigation [that] continues for years through extensive discovery and other proceedings until trial where the fact issue is finally adjudicated and the case is resolved in a way that it might have been years ago.” In short, the proposed rule “is designed to reduce the waste of time and money which such situations create.”

As noted above, based on a couple recent decisions, it would appear that Manhattan Commercial Division Justice Saliann Scarpulla is on board with proposed Rule 9-a.

In January of this year, before Rule 9-a had even been proposed, Justice Scarpulla granted summary judgment for the plaintiff on a claim for breach of contract in a case called Seiko Iron Works, Inc. v Triton Bldrs. Inc. But because she was unable to “determine the total amount of damages to which [plaintiff w]as entitled based on the papers submitted,” Justice Scarpulla exercised her discretion under CPLR 3212 (c) to direct an evidentiary hearing on the material damages issues raised by the plaintiff’s dispositive motion.

Earlier this month, Justice Scarpulla expressly cited proposed Rule 9-a in a footnote to her post-hearing decision in Overtime Partners, Inc. v 320 W. 31st Assoc., LLC, a commercial landlord-tenant action seeking injunctive relief concerning the acceptance of a proposed sublessee under a master lease. After the tenant commenced the action by order to show cause, Justice Scarpulla “ordered a factual hearing to determine whether [the landlord] unreasonably withheld and delayed consent” to the proposed sublease. Citing CPLR 3212 (c) and footnoting proposed Rule 9-a, Justice Scarpulla expressly referenced her discretion thereunder to “order an immediate trial of an issue of fact raised by a motion when appropriate for the expeditious disposition of the controversy.”

Thus, it seems proposed Rule 9-a already is alive and well in the Manhattan Commercial Division, at least in spirit.  Look for its formal adoption in the near future.

As with all new-rule or rule-change proposals, anyone interested in commenting on proposed new Rule 9-a may do so by sending or emailing their comments to John W. McConnell, Esq. (rulecomments@nycourts.gov), Counsel, Office of Court Administration, 25 Beaver Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10004.