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Case 1:15-cv-07433-LAP Document 1328-23 Filed 01/05/24 Page 7 of 22 A. Discovery of Financial Information is Appropriate Pre-Trial to Avoid the Need to Summon Two Separate Juries to Hear the Evidence in the Case. Seemingly recognizing the fact that discovery regarding her financial information is appropriate, Defendant’s ultimate argument appears not to be that the discovery is improper, but rather that it should be delayed until after the trial starts. Thus, Defendant’s first specific argument section is that financial “discovery is not appropriate pre-trial.”” DE 370 at 6. In support of this proposition, Defendant’s lead citation is a forty-year-old New York case, Rupert v. Sellers, 48 A.D.2d 265 (4" Dept. 1975). But as much more recent authority from the Southern District of New York explains, Rupert is inapplicable to discovery issues because the case relates solely to the sequence with which evidence can be produced at trial: [Defendant’s] reliance on Rupert v. Sellers, 48 A.D.2d 265, 368 N.Y.S.2d 904 (4th Dep’t 1975), for the proposition that punitive damages discovery is not appropriate until a plaintiff has first established liability is misguided since federal law and not state law governs questions of procedure such as discoverability. Hazeldine v. Beverage Media, Ltd., No. 94 Civ. 3466 (CSH), 1997 WL 362229, at *3 (S.D.N.Y. June 27, 1997) (citations omitted). Moreover, while the Second Circuit “has cited Rupert with approval, it has done so for the proposition that evidence of a defendant's wealth should not ‘be brought out at trial unless and until the jury has brought in a special verdict that the plaintiff is entitled to punitive damages.’ ” /d. (citations omitted). It has not held that financial discovery such as that sought here may only be taken after a liability determination. Pasternak v. Dow Kim, 275 F.R.D. 461, 463 (S.D.N.Y. 2011). Defendant also cites another decision from this court, Collens v. City of New York, 222 F.R.D. 249, 254 (S.D.N.Y. 2004). DE 370 at 7. But Collens does not stand for the proposition that financial discovery is broadly barred, but only that on the facts of that case no such discovery was required. As a recent case from the District of New Jersey explains in allowing pre-trial discovery of financial information for punitive damages purposes: Defendants assert that until there has been a finding of liability by the jury, punitive damage discovery is not appropriate. Defendants rely on Collens, where the court stated that because the issue of punitive damages is generally bifurcated 7