Gym Door Repairs, Inc. v. Young Equipment Sales, Inc. (No. 15-cv-4244 March 11, 2020) discusses a Rule 37 sanctions motion where one party failed to produce some documents. Here the court denied sanctions because the documents that were not produced would not have changed the outcome of the case. The plaintiffs obtained the documents by serving a FOIA request on a governmental body. The reasoning is included here:

In an opinion also dated January 28, 2020, the Magistrate Judge denied the plaintiffs’ request for Rule 37 sanctions based on the alleged failure of the Defendants to produce the documents that were disclosed as a result of the FOIL request. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 72(a) requires this Court to set aside any portion of the order under review “that is clearly erroneous or is contrary to law.” As a “non-dispositive matter,” a Magistrate Judge’s pretrial discovery ruling is reviewed under this highly deferential standard. See Thomas E. Hoar, Inc. v. Sara Lee Corp., 900 F.2d 522, 525 (2d Cir. 1990). An order is clearly erroneous if the reviewing court is “left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed.” See Easley v. Cromartie, 532 U.S. 234, 242 (2001) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). “An order is contrary to law when it fails to apply or misapplies relevant statutes, case law or rules of procedure.” Thompson v. Keane, No. 95-CV-2442 (SHS), 1996 WL 229887, at *1 (S.D.N.Y. May 6, 1996) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). See also Frydman v. Verschleiser, No. 14-CV-8084 (JGK), 2017 WL 1155919, at *2 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 27, 2017).

It is not clear that the plaintiffs have filed a timely appeal from the denial of sanctions under Rule 37. The plaintiffs have not denominated their pleading as an appeal from the Magistrate Judge’s ruling, and have referred to Rule 37 only in the final sentence of their objections to the Magistrate Judge’s Report and Recommendation relating to Rule 11 sanctions. Even then, the plaintiffs do not detail any objections to the denial of their request for Rule 37 sanctions.

In any event, in this case, far from being erroneous, the Magistrate Judge correctly concluded that there was no basis for imposing any sanctions under Rule 37 because the failure to produce the documents disclosed in response to the FOIL request would not have changed the outcome of the summary judgment motions at all. There were numerous reasons to grant the summary judgment motions against the plaintiffs and the documents produced in response to the FOIL request would not have changed that result. Therefore, the decision of the Magistrate Judge was not clearly erroneous or contrary to law but was plainly correct.

The court denied all requests for sanctions.

• Rule 37 Sanctions