What Does A Motion To Quash A Subpoena In New Jersey Family Court Look Like?

Throughout the years as a New Jersey lawyer, I have served many Subpoenas upon third parties for information that will protect my client’s interests in a divorce. On the other hand, the attorneys at my law firm have filed motions to quash subpoenas, typically on the grounds that the documents that are being requested are not relevant to any of the issues contained in the divorce action. Following, please find a sample Notice of Motion to Quash Subpoena, the Supporting Certification of our (fictitious) client, and a proposed form of Order for a New Jersey family judge’s hopeful signature. Any questions, please contact my office today.

LAW OFFICES OF EDWARD R. WEINSTEIN, LLC

Weinstein Professional Building

214 Highway 18 North, Suite 2A

East Brunswick, New Jersey 08816

Telephone: 732-246-0909

Attorneys for Plaintiff, Jane Doe

TO: Earl Warren, Esq.

Law Offices of Earl Warren, LLC

1 Main Street

Mount Holly, New Jersey 08060

Attorney for Defendant, John Doe

Lisa Doe

144 Dowd Lane

East Brunswick, New Jersey 08816

PLEASE TAKE NOTICE that on Friday, February 15, 2012, at 9:00 a.m., or as soon thereafter as counsel can be heard, the undersigned, Law Offices of Edward R. Weinstein, LLC, attorneys for the Plaintiff, Jane Doe, shall move before the Superior Court of New Jersey, Middlesex County, Chancery Division, Family Part, at the Middlesex County Courthouse, 120 New Street, New Brunswick, New Jersey for an Order as follows:

1. Quashing the Subpoena For Taking Deposition dated January 5, 2016 sent by the Defendant to Lisa Doe in its entirety.

2. For counsel fees and costs associated with the within application.

3. For such further relief as the Court may deem equitable and just.

PLEASE TAKE FURTHER NOTICE that in support of this application the Plaintiff shall rely upon her Certification, as annexed hereto. A proposed form of Order is attached.

PLEASE TAKE FURTHER NOTICE that pursuant to R. 1:6-2, the Plaintiff hereby requests oral argument of the matter.

LAW OFFICES OF EDWARD R. WEINSTEIN, LLC

Attorneys for Plaintiff, Jane Doe

Dated: By: _____________________________________________ EDWARD R. WEINSTEIN, ESQ.

NOTICE PURSUANT TO N.J.S.A. 2A:17-56.8

The child support provision of any order, and the medical support provision may, as appropriate, be enforced by an income withholding upon the current or future income due from the obligor’s employer or successor employers and upon the unemployment compensation benefits due the obligor except as provided in section 3 of P.L.1981, c. 417 (C. 2A:17-56.9). The driver’s license and professional or occupational licenses held or applied for the obligor may be denied, suspended or revoked if: the child support arrearage is equal to or exceeds the amount of child support payable for six months; the obligor fails to provide health insurance for the child as ordered by the court for six months; or a warrant for the obligor’s arrest has been issued by the court due to failure to pay child support as ordered, failure to appear at a hearing to establish paternity or child support, or failure to appear at a hearing to enforce a child support order and said warrant remains outstanding. The amount of an IV-D child support order and the provisions for medical support coverage to be reviewed and updated, as necessary, at least every three years.

NOTICE TO LITIGANTS PURSUANT TO RULE 5:5-4(c): IF YOU WANT TO RESPOND TO THIS MOTION YOU MUST DO SO IN WRITING:

This written response is to be by affidavit or certification. (Affidavits and certifications are documents filed with the Court. In either document the person signing it swears to its truth and acknowledges that they are aware that they can be punished for not filing a true statement with the Court. Affidavits are notarized and certifications are not.) If you would also like to submit your own separate request in a motion to the judge you can do so by filing a cross-motion. Your response and/or cross-motion may ask for oral argument. That means you can ask to appear before the court to explain your position. However, you must submit a written response even if you request oral argument. Any papers you send to the court must be sent to the opposing side, either to the attorney if the opposing party is represented by one or to the other party if they represent themselves.

The response and/or cross-motion must be submitted to the Court by a certain date. All motions must be filed on the Tuesday 24 days before the return date. A response and/or cross-motion must be filed fifteen days (Thursday) before the return date. Answers or responses to any opposing affidavits and cross-motions are to be served and filed not later than eight days (Thursday) before the return date. No other response is permitted without permission of the court. If you mail in your papers you must add three days to the above time periods.

Response to motions papers sent to the court are to be sent to the following address depending on the County in which this present application was filed: Middlesex County Superior Court, Family Part, 120 New Street, New Brunswick, New Jersey. Please call the Family Division Manager’s office if you have any questions on how to file a motion, cross-motion or any response papers. Please note that the Family Division Manager’s office cannot give you legal advice.

TAKE FURTHER NOTICE that the within application is filed pursuant to R. 1:6-2 and that the Court will sign the form of Order attached hereto in the Court’s discretion in the event that timely objection is not filed with the Court pursuant to the Rules of Court prior to 8 days before the return date of the application.

TAKE FURTHER NOTICE that pursuant to R. 1:6-2 (d) oral arguments may be waived, unless requested by you or your attorney, or at the making of the motion. As a consequence, should you not retain an attorney, or should you fail to timely respond in writing and file with the Court your response to this application, the Court in its sound discretion may refuse to consider any oral application you may make on the return date of this motion.

LAW OFFICES OF EDWARD R. WEINSTEIN, LLC

Weinstein Professional Building

214 Highway 18 North, Suite 2A

East Brunswick, New Jersey 08816

Telephone: 732-246-0909

Attorneys for Plaintiff, Jane Doe

I, JANE DOE, of full age, hereby certify and state as follows:

1. I am the Plaintiff in the above captioned matter. As such, I am familiar with the facts herein. I make this Certification in support of my Notice of Motion to Quash the Subpoena For Taking Deposition which is dated October 31, 2012, and which was handed by the Defendant to our daughter, Lisa Doe.

2. By way of brief background, the Defendant and I were married on February 9, 1986 and I recently filed a Complaint for Divorce on January 20, 2012. One child was born of our marriage, to wit: Lisa, whose date of birth is April 19, 1990 (25). Lisa is working full-time and is emancipated.

3. The Defendant has recently issued a Subpoena to our daughter Lisa on October 31, 2012, to take her deposition on November 15, 2012, and compelling her to produce documentation related to her income, employment, student loans, loan applications and mortgage applications, a copy of which Subpoena is attached hereto Exhibit “A”.Respectfully, this information, these documents, and her appearance for a deposition have nothing to do with the pending issues in our divorce case. As such, this Subpoena is overbroad and irrelevant to the issues in this matter and instead is being used to intimidate our daughter and cause annoyance and embarrassment to her. I am truly shocked that the Defendant would stoop to this level and bring our child into our divorce action.

4. For the reasons set forth herein, I am requesting that the Court quash the Subpoena and direct that our daughter is not a necessary witness in this matter as her testimony would be irrelevant, incompetent or cumulative. I would be remiss if I did not direct the court’s attention to the items that the Defendant is seeking our daughter to produce at the deposition.

5. As the Court may be aware, numerous discovery has already taken place in the matter and various documents have been exchanged between the Defendant and I related to the relevant issues in our divorce matter. I have already provided the Defendant with copies of (i) Lisa’s bank account statements that I have access to; and (ii) both mine and her student loan information, including a statement from PNC BANK showing that a total balance of $257,975.66 remains for both of our student loans.

6. In the interest of judicial economy, I do not believe it is necessary to provide the documents pertaining to all the prior discovery demands or proofs of what has been supplied to date. In the event the Defendant disputes that ample discovery has been exchanged, I will provide these documents in reply. However, the Defendant’s counsel served discovery upon me, which I have complied with. I therefore contend that the documents already provided by me constitute the requested information that he is now seeking from our daughter. Therefore, the Defendant’s Subpoena is unreasonable.

7. With regard to Lisa’s income information, I submit that Lisa’s income is not relevant to this matter. The Defendant and I agreed upon and secured student loans to which, by definition, we are responsible for repayment of. We currently pay approximately $500 per month toward the parent plus loans for Lisa’s undergraduate education. Lisa currently pays $200 per month toward her subsidized and unsubsidized Stafford loans. I do not believe involving our children in this divorce litigation is to anyone’s benefit and I am surprised that the Defendant has done so. It was agreed between us that we would be mutually responsible for all student loans taken out toward Lisa’s tuition and expenses. This is because Lisa took out her own loans toward her education.

8. In addition, the Subpoena is also procedurally defective as it compels her attendance at a deposition in an improper location. This case is in the Middlesex County Family Court and our daughter currently resides in East Brunswick, New Jersey, which is also in Middlesex County. The Defendant is seeking to have her inappropriately appear at his attorney’s office over an hour and thirty minutes away in a completely different county, Burlington County. In accordance with the Rules of Court, this is improper and the Subpoena should be quashed on this ground alone.

9. The information sought in the Subpoena is irrelevant to the issues before the Court. I believe that compliance with the Subpoena would be unreasonable and oppressive pursuant to Court Rule 1:9-2 and that this Subpoena was done solely for the purpose of harassment and to cause embarrassment to our daughter and should therefore be quashed. Any relevant information related to the divorce case has been provided by me to the Defendant and any further information can be obtained through me, there is no reason to involve and burden our daughter with this stuff.

10. Lastly, I respectfully request that the Court grant me counsel fees and court costs associated with the within application as I have attempted on multiple occasions to resolve this matter with the Defendant in good faith. The Defendant’s bad faith in issuing the Subpoena has caused me unnecessary counsel fees. I shall rely upon and respectfully refer the Court to my attorney’s Certification of Services which is attached hereto as Exhibit “B”, for the appropriate amount of counsel fees the Defendant should pay.

11. For the foregoing reasons, I respectfully request that the various relief sought in my Notice of Motion be granted, the Subpoena quashed and an appropriate award of counsel fees be ordered.

12. I thank the court for its time and consideration of my Certification.

I hereby certify that the foregoing statements made by me are true and accurate. I am aware that if any of the foregoing statements made by me are willfully false, I am subject to punishment.

Date: _______________________________

JANE DOE

LAW OFFICES OF EDWARD R. WEINSTEIN, LLC

Weinstein Professional Building

214 Highway 18 North, Suite 2A

East Brunswick, New Jersey 08816

Telephone: 732-246-0909

Attorneys for Plaintiff, Jane Doe

THIS MATTER having been opened to the Court by way of Notice of Motion having been filed on behalf of the Plaintiff, Jane Doe, by and through her attorneys, Edward R. Weinstein, Esq., of Law Offices of Edward R. Weinstein, LLC, appearing, and notice having been provided to the Defendant, John Doe, by and through his attorneys, Earl Warren of the Law Offices of Earl Warren LLC, appearing, and notice having been provided to Lisa Fischer, and the Court having considered the papers submitted and having heard the arguments of counsel, if any, and for good cause having been shown;

IT IS on this ______ day of __________________, 2016, ORDERED as follows:

1. The Subpoena For Taking Deposition dated January 5, 2016, which was handed by the Defendant to Lisa Doe is hereby quashed. Lisa Doe shall not appear on the date of February 16, 2016 for her deposition and she is not to turn over any documents to the Defendant which were requested in the same.

2. The Defendant shall pay counsel fees and costs to the Law Office of Edward R. Weinstein, LLC, in the sum of $____________ within _____ days of the date of this Order.

3. All other Orders not modified herein shall remain in full force and effect.

4. A true copy of this Order shall be served upon all parties within ten (10) days of the date of the entry of this Order.

_______________________________

Honorable ANTONIO SCALIA, J.S.C.

____ Opposed

____ Unopposed