In September the Civil Practice Law and Rules turned 50. Later this fall the Court of Appeals may give the CPLR (and practitioners) a gift—a decision regarding the scope of the application of one of the most important statutes in our civil procedure code. Specifically, the court may have occasion to provide guidance on a curious question of New York practice, one that has potentially far-reaching implications: To what types of matters can CPLR 2004 be applied? This issue manifests itself when a party asks a court to apply CPLR 2004, which allows a court to extend many deadlines, to a provision of law found outside of the CPLR. The issue has caused a split in the departments, and may be addressed by the Court of Appeals in Navillus Tile v. LC Main, 98 AD3d 979 (2d Dept. 2012), lv granted 20 NY3d 854 (2012). This piece will review the applicable provisions of the CPLR and the case law fueling the issue, and consider the appropriate limits of CPLR 2004′s reach.

The CPLR

Let’s start at the beginning—literally. CPLR 101, the first statute in the CPLR, provides, in relevant part, that the CPLR “shall govern the procedure in civil judicial proceedings in all courts of the state and before all judges, except where the procedure is regulated by inconsistent statute.” Thanks to CPLR 101, the CPLR is the monarch of the kingdom of civil procedure, ceding power only to “specific statutes that govern in special situations or in courts with particularized functions” (Siegel, NY Practice § 2 at 2 [Connors 5th ed.]).

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