A.O. v. Diocese of Brooklyn

Summary

The New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Second Department affirmed an order compelling the Diocese of Brooklyn to produce certain portions of personnel files in an action alleging negligent hiring, retention, and supervision arising from sexual abuse claims. The court held that the materials were relevant and discoverable, and that the Diocese failed to establish applicable priest-penitent, physician-patient, or client-psychologist privileges or a First Amendment bar to disclosure.

Holdings

1. Personnel records are generally discoverable where, as here, a plaintiff alleges negligent hiring, retention, or supervision, and the trial court properly ordered disclosure of portions bearing on the Diocese's knowledge of the alleged perpetrators' propensity to abuse children.
2. Disclosure of the personnel-file materials did not violate the First Amendment because the materials were sought to establish the Diocese's knowledge of alleged abuse, not to evaluate or resolve an internal religious dispute.
3. The Diocese did not establish that the challenged portions of Failla's personnel file were protected by the priest-penitent privilege under CPLR 4505.
4. The challenged personnel-file portions were not subject to redaction under the physician-patient or client-psychologist privileges because the Diocese failed to establish the required privilege protections.

Questions Presented

1. Whether certain portions of the alleged perpetrators' personnel files were material and necessary to the prosecution of A.O.'s negligent hiring, retention, and supervision claims.
2. Whether the Diocese established that the withheld personnel-file materials were protected by the priest-penitent, physician-patient, or client-psychologist privileges.
3. Whether disclosure of the personnel-file materials would improperly require adjudication of an internal religious dispute in violation of the First Amendment.
4. Whether the Supreme Court providently exercised its discretion in denying the Diocese's CPLR 3103(a) motion for a protective order.

Disposition

affirmed