CP v. AP

In CP v. AP (32 Misc 3d 1210[A], 2011 NY Slip Op 51245[U] [Sup Ct, NY County 2011], the court followed Ochs closely, finding no special circumstances to warrant pretrial disclosure of the underlying basis of the court-appointed neutral forensic evaluator's report. The circumstances alleged by the wife, who sought release of the forensic evaluator's file, were that it was needed for trial preparation and because the forensic evaluator would be available on only one of the two dates set for trial. In support of her request, the wife offered the 2006 report of the New York State Matrimonial Commission, recommending that the forensic evaluator's report be subject to all available discovery devices for probing the basis for the report. The court noted that the Commission's report recognized that its recommendation for full disclosure of the forensic's file did not conform to existing case law on that issue. The court denied access to the file in advance of trial. Indeed, the court may have gone even one step further by applying the pretrial standard to access at trial when it held that the evaluator's notes and test results could be produced at trial only if there was a sufficient showing of bias or other reason that called into question the reliability of the report. 32 Misc 3d 1210[A], 2011 NY Slip Op 51245[U] at 4.)