For your reading pleasure, here is the preliminary statement of the attorneys for Sweetgrass Farm regarding their recent court action:
PRELIMINARY STATEMENT
The parties in this matter are not on a level playing field. Defendant Sweet Grass Farm,
LLC (“SGF”) comes before this Court seeking an Order to rectify that situation. Specifically, on March 2, 2021, SGF served a subpoena on the Morris County Prosecutor’s Office seeking
Plaintiff’s social media postings as well as police reports, witness statements, and other parts of their investigative file. The documents sought are already in possession of one party to the
action (Barisone) and were authored, in part, by Plaintiff. Nonetheless, the Morris County
Prosecutor’s Office has refused to comply with SGF’s subpoena absent an Order from this Court. SGF is entitled to possess all of the same information that the other parties in this litigation possess. SGF is willing to take the requested information pursuant to a Confidentiality Order. Therefore, the Morris County Prosecutor’s Office has no legitimate reason not to comply with a lawfully issued subpoena. As a result, SGF hereby moves before the Court for an Order compelling the compliance with its subpoena.
STATEMENT OF FACTS
As the Court is well aware, this case is inextricably intertwined with the pending criminal
prosecution of Defendant Michael Barisone (“Barisone”) for the same incident that forms the
basis of Plaintiff’s Complaint. SGF has no desire to interrupt and/or interfere with the County’s prosecution of Mr. Barisone. Rather, SGF simply seeks copies of records that were: 1) authored by the Plaintiff and previously placed in the public domain; and/or 2) already produced by the Prosecutor’s Office to at least one other party in this litigation (Barisone).
By way of background, Plaintiff’s Complaint alleges that on August 7, 2019, Plaintiff
was shot by Defendant Michael Barisone on the premises owned by SGF. Plaintiff’s allegations against SGF sound in: 1) strict premises liability (a count that is unsustainable as a matter of law and will be the subject of future Summary Judgment motion); and 2) negligent security. Upon information and belief, Plaintiff was a frequent poster on Facebook and made
numerous statements about her interactions with Defendant Barisone and the incident in question
prior to and after August 7, 2019. For reasons unknown, the postings in question are no longer available on Plaintiff’s Facebook page.
On October 16, 2020, SGF served upon Plaintiff interrogatories and a request for the
production of documents. Those discovery request specifically requested copies of Plaintiff’s
social media postings on Facebook related to the incident and/or Barisone. (See Certification of Counsel (“Counsel Cert.”) at “Exhibit A”).
On February 19, 2021, Plaintiff responded that she did not have copies of the postings in
her possession. (Id.). Upon information and belief, the Morris County Prosecutor’s office is in possession of 19,000 pages of contemporaneously made statements about the incident and Defendant Barisone posted by the Plaintiff on her Facebook account and other social media platforms. (See CounselCert. at “Exhibit B”).
In fact, the Plaintiff’s Facebook postings are referenced in the August 3, 2019 9-1-1 call
placed by Defendant Barisone. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45R_MJsk5pU)
Upon information and belief, the Morris County Prosecutor’s Office has already
produced these exact records to Defendant Barisone in conjunction with discovery in the
criminal prosecution.
On March 2, 2021, SGF served a subpoena on the Morris County Prosecutor’s Office
seeking Plaintiff’s social media postings as well as police reports, witness statements, and other parts of their investigative file. (See Counsel Cert. at “Exhibit C”).
In response, the Morris County Prosecutor’s Office has refused to turn over the requested
documents at this time absent an Order from this Court. (See Counsel Cert. at “Exhibit D”).
Production of the requested documents to SGF would in no way prejudice or otherwise
interfere with the prosecution of Barisone’s criminal action because: 1) production can be made subject to a Confidentiality Order; and 2) the documents in question are already in the possession
of one party (Barisone) and were authored, in part, by another party (Kanarek).
The parties are attempting to schedule Ms. Kanarek’s deposition, but cannot do so when
there are hundreds, if not thousands of relevant statements about the incident that have not been
produced to SGF and are not available to SGF by any other means. As a result, SGF makes the
instant application.
