Discovery and depositions
Discovery is the part of a lawsuit where each side has to hand over what it has and answer questions under oath. In a police abuse case it is where the footage, the 911 recording, the arrest paperwork and the officers' disciplinary histories come out, and where you, the officers and the witnesses are each questioned for hours by the other side's lawyer. It ends with the motion for summary judgment, where the officers ask the court to rule that qualified immunity ends the case before a jury sees it. Most cases are decided there.
Current as of September 2026. We re-check this page every quarter and after any change in the law.
Discovery has rules, deadlines and a vocabulary, and none of that is needed to understand what it does. Each side must produce its documents and recordings. Each side may question the other's witnesses under oath. The court referees disputes about what has to be turned over. Then the record is closed, and the officers move for summary judgment. This page walks through those steps in the order they happen and says what you will be asked to do at each one. If a criminal charge is pending, talk to your defense lawyer before describing the arrest to anyone; nothing on this page happens until the two lawyers have decided how, and the criminal case and civil case page explains why.
The first sworn testimony: the 50-h examination
In a New York case the first time you testify under oath is usually before the lawsuit exists. Once a notice of claim is served, the municipality may demand, within 90 days of the notice, that the claimant appear for an examination about the claim (N.Y. Gen. Mun. Law § 50-h). This is the 50-h examination. A lawyer for the City asks about the incident, the injuries and the treatment; a court reporter takes it down; and the transcript is evidence for the rest of the case. If the claimant fails to appear the action cannot proceed until the examination is held. If the City demands it but does not hold it within 90 days of the demand, the claimant may sue without it.
Two things about the 50-h matter. First, it is the version of events every later version will be measured against, so it is prepared for as carefully as a deposition, with the footage reviewed beforehand where we have it. Second, it is testimony about the same events as any open criminal charge, and the prosecution can obtain the transcript. With a charge pending, the examination is adjourned or handled with both the civil and the criminal lawyer having decided how. The notice of claim page covers the rule.
Documents and recordings
Once the case is filed and survives any motion to dismiss, each side serves written requests for documents and the other side must produce what it has. From the defendants we obtain the body-worn camera footage from every officer present, precinct and vehicle video, the 911 and radio recordings, the arrest and stop reports, the use of force reports, the officers' memo books, the criminal court file, and the jail's records if you were held. From you the defendants obtain medical records, employment records if lost wages are claimed, your social media, and anything you wrote about the incident. That last item is why the first week page says to post nothing. Where a request is refused, the court decides whether it must be answered.
The officers' disciplinary histories
New York Civil Rights Law § 50-a, which shielded police disciplinary records from disclosure, was repealed by legislation signed June 12, 2020 (Ch. 96, L. 2020); those records are now subject to FOIL with personal-information redactions, and in a lawsuit they are produced in discovery, usually under a confidentiality order. Prior complaints, CCRB findings and departmental discipline matter in two ways. To the Monell claim against the City, which asks whether the City knew of a pattern and tolerated it (Connick v. Thompson, 563 U.S. 51 (2011)), and to the officer's credibility as a witness. The disciplinary records page explains what is available.
Depositions
Yours
The defendants' lawyer questions you under oath, with your lawyer present and a court reporter transcribing, usually for most of a day. The questions cover the incident minute by minute, your injuries and treatment, your criminal history, your employment, and anything you have said or written about the case. The purpose is to lock in your account and to find every inconsistency between it, the 50-h transcript, the medical records and the footage. Preparation is the work: reviewing the footage and the records, and learning to answer the question asked and stop. You are not there to argue the case; you are there to say what happened, accurately, and to say "I do not know" when you do not.
The officers'
We question each officer under oath, with the department's lawyer defending. An officer's deposition is where the arrest report and the criminal complaint are compared to the footage, where the officer is asked what he knew and when, what he saw, what he was told on the radio, what training he received, and what he wrote afterward. Because probable cause is judged on the facts known to the officer at the time (District of Columbia v. Wesby, 583 U.S. 48 (2018)) and force on the totality of the circumstances (Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386 (1989); Barnes v. Felix, 605 U.S. ___ (2025)), the deposition is where those facts are fixed under oath. An officer whose sworn account contradicts his own camera has a problem the City's lawyer sees as clearly as we do.
Witnesses, and others
Civilian witnesses, the arresting officers' supervisors, the treating physicians and, where the injury or the force requires it, retained witnesses who explain medical causation or police practice, are each deposed. The whole of it, transcripts and exhibits, is the record. Nothing that is not in the record can be used on the motion that follows.
The summary judgment motion on qualified immunity
When discovery closes, the officers move for summary judgment. The motion asks the court to rule, on the record and taking the facts in your favor, that the case cannot go to a jury. For the federal claims the ground is almost always qualified immunity: an officer is shielded unless the conduct violated "clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known" (Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800 (1982)). The court may decide the "clearly established" question first, without deciding whether a right was violated at all (Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223 (2009)), and it asks whether existing precedent placed the unlawfulness of the officer's conduct beyond debate on facts like these.
The standard has tightened. In District of Columbia v. Wesby, 583 U.S. 48 (2018), the Court found probable cause on the totality of the circumstances and, in any event, qualified immunity because no precedent clearly established otherwise. On March 23, 2026, in Zorn v. Linton, 607 U.S. ___ (2026), the Court reversed the Second Circuit's denial of qualified immunity to an officer who used a rear wristlock on a passively resisting protester after warnings, holding that no precedent placed the question "beyond debate." The qualified immunity page goes through the doctrine and the 2026 decisions. The short version for discovery is this: the motion is won or lost on how close the facts in the record are to a published case in which the same conduct was held unlawful, and the record is built to answer that question.
Why most cases are decided here
If the court grants the motion, the federal claims against the officers end without a trial; the state-law claims, which are decided under their own rules rather than the federal qualified immunity doctrine, and for an NYPD case the claim under the City's 2021 law (N.Y.C. Admin. Code § 8-804), may continue. If the court denies the motion, the case is set for trial, and that is when most defendants settle. The settlement and trial page picks up there. Either way, the case has been decided by what was in the record, and the record was decided in the first week.
For a person suing about a jail or prison
Two federal rules shape discovery in a custody case. First, a prisoner may not bring a Section 1983 action about prison conditions "until such administrative remedies as are available are exhausted" (42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a)); there is no "special circumstances" exception, but a grievance process that is a dead end, opaque or thwarted by officials is not "available" (Ross v. Blake, 578 U.S. 632 (2016)). The grievance file is the first thing produced. Second, no federal action lies for mental or emotional injury suffered while in custody "without a prior showing of physical injury or the commission of a sexual act" (42 U.S.C. § 1997e(e)). The medical records from the facility are therefore the center of the case, and they are requested at once. The jail and prison page covers both rules.
Qualified immunity
The doctrine in plain English, the 2026 decisions, and what "clearly established" means in practice.
Qualified immunity →Evidence and body cameras
What to request in the first week so that it exists when discovery begins.
Evidence →Settlement and trial
How settlement with the City works, what a jury decides, and what happens to the number afterward.
Settlement and trial →Common questions
What is a deposition?
Sworn testimony taken outside court. You sit at a table with your lawyer, the defendants' lawyer and a court reporter, and the defendants' lawyer asks questions about the incident, your injuries, your treatment and your background, for as long as the rules allow. Everything is transcribed and can be read to a jury. The officers sit for the same thing, questioned by us.
Is the 50-h examination the same as a deposition?
In substance, yes. It comes earlier. After a notice of claim is served in New York, the municipality may demand an examination under oath about the claim, within 90 days of the notice. It is the first sworn account of the incident, taken by the City's lawyer, and it will be compared with everything you say later. With a criminal charge pending it is adjourned or handled with both lawyers.
Will I see the officers' disciplinary records?
In discovery, yes, subject to the court's rules on confidentiality. Since the repeal of New York Civil Rights Law 50-a in June 2020 those records are also available under FOIL with redactions. The histories matter to the Monell claim against the City and to the officers' credibility.
Why are most cases decided at summary judgment?
Because qualified immunity is decided there. After discovery the officers move for a ruling that, even on the plaintiff's version of the facts, no clearly established law made their conduct unlawful. If the court agrees, the federal claims against them end without a trial. If the court denies the motion, the case is set for trial and most defendants settle. The motion is the hinge of the case, and the record built in discovery is what it turns on.
Tell us what happened.
One conversation with an attorney, in your language. We tell you which claims the facts support, which deadline runs first for the agency involved, what evidence to preserve this week, and whether a pending criminal case changes the timing. If it is not a case we can take, we say so and tell you where to go.
(718) 484-7510If a criminal charge is still open, talk to your defense lawyer before you describe the arrest to anyone, including us. English, Russian and Spanish in-house; an interpreter for any other language. Contingency fee, confirmed in writing before we begin.