Form of Papers, Supreme Court, Kings County, Uniform Civil Term Rules

I was reviewing written submissions and waiting for the second call of the motion calendar on a multi-party Labor Law Article 7 and 10 suit that the firm was defending in Supreme Court, Kings County, IAS Part 41, when the attorney representing a third-party defendant returned to the bench seating in a particular fit of pique.  She exhorted that she had just schlepped back from - "you know, that room across from CCP where you go to file an Order to Show Cause" and the clerk had refused to accept the OTSC because it was not prepared with protruding exhibit tabs.  "Could you imagine?!?"  Furthermore, the attorney was more haughty that the clerk wouldn't provide any latitude on what was a manifestly picayune insistence on a trivial matter.  Right? 

 

Entirely to the contrary, it is rudimentary that the offending papers should never have been prepared as such or left the attorney's office in that condition on an ill-fated journey from Long Island to the Kings County Supreme Court.  CPLR 2101 provides the requirement for the form of papers and must also be read in conjunction with the Local Rules for the particular judicial district and county.  Kings County Supreme Court Uniform Civil Term Rules, Part A, provide in pertinent part that:   Motions, orders and other filed papers shall be indexed with protruding tabs. Clerks are required (emphasis mine) to reject papers that do not have protruding exhibit tabs, except papers in matrimonial cases and papers filed by pro se litigants.  The rule notwithstanding, it should seem patently obvious to the movant that, if that party indeed has the proof annexed to the application to warrant the adverse party to show cause why the application should not be granted, such proof should be indexed and easily identified with protruding tabs.