(a) Prevention of abuse. The court may at any time on its own initiative, or on motion of any party or of any person from whom or about whom discovery is sought, make a protective order denying, limiting, conditioning or regulating the use of any disclosure device. Such order shall be designed to prevent unreasonable annoyance, expense, embarrassment, disadvantage, or other prejudice to any person or the courts.
§ 3103.Protective orders.
Article 31. Disclosure · Last amended 2013 · Last verified July 21, 2026
In one sentenceCPLR 3103 is New York's protective-order statute: it lets a court deny, limit, or condition any disclosure device to prevent unreasonable annoyance, expense, embarrassment, or prejudice, pauses disputed disclosure once a motion is served, and lets a court suppress improperly obtained information.
Full Text of CPLR 3103
(b) Suspension of disclosure pending application for protective order. Service of a notice of motion for a protective order shall suspend disclosure of the particular matter in dispute.
(c) Suppression of information improperly obtained. If any disclosure under this article has been improperly or irregularly obtained so that a substantial right of a party is prejudiced, the court, on motion, may make an appropriate order, including an order that the information be suppressed.
Plain-English Summary
Subdivision (a) gives the court broad, flexible authority to police discovery. It can act on a party's motion, on a motion by the person from whom or about whom discovery is sought — including a non-party witness — or on its own initiative, and it can deny a disclosure device outright, limit its scope, attach conditions, or regulate how it is used. The only stated purpose is to prevent unreasonable annoyance, expense, embarrassment, disadvantage, or other prejudice, which gives judges room to tailor an order to the problem at hand: sealing a deposition transcript, barring a line of questioning, splitting a document review by confidentiality tier, or shifting costs where one side is using its resources to grind down the other. There is no fixed list of remedies, so what a protective order looks like depends entirely on what is going wrong.
Subdivision (b) supplies an automatic brake. The moment anyone entitled to seek the order — a party or a non-party from whom or about whom discovery is sought — serves a notice of motion for a protective order, disclosure of the particular matter in dispute stops on its own, without waiting for the court to rule. That stay keeps a disputed deposition or document demand from proceeding — and any resulting harm from occurring — while the motion is pending, though it reaches only the specific matter in dispute, not every open item of discovery in the case.
Subdivision (c) works after the fact rather than before it. If disclosure has already happened improperly or irregularly — say, outside the required procedure or in violation of an existing order — and that has prejudiced a substantial right, the court can suppress the information on motion, on top of whatever other relief is appropriate. Section 3103 is the counterweight to the wide-open disclosure that section 3101 authorizes: 3101 sets the scope, and 3103 gives courts the tools to rein in disclosure that has become oppressive, been misused, or wandered outside the rules.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I get a protective order in a New York case?
Move under CPLR 3103(a), asking the court to deny, limit, condition, or regulate a specific disclosure device on the ground that it would cause unreasonable annoyance, expense, embarrassment, disadvantage, or other prejudice. A non-party from whom or about whom discovery is sought can bring the same motion, and the court can also act on its own.
Does filing a motion for a protective order stop discovery automatically?
Yes, but only for the matter in dispute. Subdivision (b) suspends disclosure of that particular matter the moment the notice of motion is served, without any separate order needed.
What can a New York protective order do?
It can deny a disclosure device entirely, limit its scope, attach conditions such as confidentiality terms or cost-shifting, or regulate the manner in which it proceeds. Courts fashion the order to fit whatever annoyance, expense, embarrassment, disadvantage, or prejudice is at stake.
Can a non-party witness ask for a protective order?
Yes. Subdivision (a) allows a motion by any person from whom or about whom discovery is sought, not just by a party to the action.
What happens if the other side already obtained discovery improperly?
Subdivision (c) lets the court suppress information obtained improperly or irregularly if a substantial right of a party was prejudiced by it, on motion after the fact.
Can a court issue a protective order without a motion from either side?
Yes. Subdivision (a) lets the court act on its own initiative to prevent unreasonable annoyance, expense, embarrassment, disadvantage, or other prejudice, without waiting for a party to ask.
What is the legal standard for a protective order under CPLR 3103?
The moving party must show that the disclosure device in question would cause unreasonable annoyance, expense, embarrassment, disadvantage, or other prejudice to a person or to the courts. There is no fixed checklist beyond that; the court weighs the specific facts and tailors relief to them.
How does CPLR 3103 relate to CPLR 3101's broad disclosure standard?
Section 3101 opens discovery to anything material and necessary to the case, and section 3103 is the mechanism that reins that scope in when it is being used to harass, overburden, or embarrass rather than to develop the case. The two sections work as a pair — one sets the boundary outward, the other pulls it back in.
Advisory Committee Notes
Subd (a) of this section is stated as broadly as possible. It includes the new “expense” provision in rule 30(b), recommended by the Federal rules advisory committee. Report of the Advisory Committee on Federal Rules 24, 26 (May 1954); id. at 35, 36–37 (Oct. 1955); see also Ky Prac & Serv, R Civ P 30.02 (Baldwin 1956); La Rev Stat § 13:3762 (Supp 1954); Minn R Civ P 30.02, 232 Minn Rep (1951). Under this subdivision the following matters, among others may be regulated:
1. the time, order, and place of taking depositions;
2. the number and names of persons to be questioned;
3. the time within which the information must be obtained;
4. the number, kinds of questions, or specific questions which may be asked;
5. the disclosure device or combination of devices which may be used; and 6. the matters which may or may not be inquired into.
There is no limit but the needs of the parties on the nature of the order or the conditions of discovery. The following orders are illustrative:
1. examination shall be held with no one present but the parties, officers of the court and counsel; information so obtained shall not be revealed, or, after being sealed, the deposition shall be opened only by order of the court;
2. trade or business secrets, secret processes or research, or customer or stockholder lists need not be disclosed;
3. parties shall simultaneously file specified documents or information enclosed in sealed envelopes to be opened as directed by the court;
4. costs of transcription shall be paid by one or more of the parties or apportioned among them;
5. in cases of disparity in economic resources, where such resources are being used to prevent another party from properly participating in the case, the party examining shall forego the examination or pay the expenses of any or all of the other parties or witnesses, including attorney’s fees reasonably incurred for representation at such examinations;
6. physical examination of the property, person, documents, or records of a party or a witness shall be conducted at specified times, under specified conditions and in a specified manner;
7. physical examination of property, person, documents, or records of a party or a witness shall be conducted using specified technical devices such as the motion picture camera, sound recording equipment, x-rays and spectroscope;
8. where an examination requires the destruction of, or a substantial change in, property, experts appointed by all parties or the court shall be permitted to co-operate and be present at such an examination; and 9. where it appears that a witness is under the control of one of the parties, such party shall bring the witness within the state so that his deposition may be taken here.
In order to emphasize the court’s broad discretion under this subdivision the committee refused to adopt such provisions as those requiring payment of counsel fees where depositions are taken more than a specified number of miles from the court (13 Del Code Ann, R Civ P 30(h) (1953); Pa Stat Ann tit 12, R Civ P 4008 (Purdon Supp 1954)), specifying the maximum number of days to be devoted to depositions (see Comment, 59 Yale LJ 117, 133 (1949)), or limiting the number of interrogatories. Mass Ann Laws c. 231, § 61 (1955).
Subd (b) of this section consists of the last two sentences of Federal rule 30(d), with minor changes. The suspension would be automatic.
Subd (c) of this section is based on RCP 133 which applied only to depositions taken outside the state. Under rule 133, if the objection was not made before trial it was deemed waived because another examination could not then be taken. This subdivision should be read with CPLR rules 3112 and 3115.
The Committee recommends an amendment to the language of CPLR § 3103(a) to expand the delineated persons who may seek the remedy of a protective order in regard to the use of discovery devices such as a subpoena for records.
Presently the statute contemplates protective orders made by the court on its own motion or on motion of a party or a person from whom discovery is sought. Not addressed is a person about whom records are being subpoenaed from either a party or another non-party. By way of example, if an accountant is subpoenaed to produce the records of clients who are not parties to the litigation, it is unclear under the present statute whether the non-party clients would have standing to object to the production of their records.
It would be an unwarranted anomaly for such non-parties to have less of a right to protect their records than those persons presently delineated in the statute.
It should be noted that it is not the purpose of this amendment to change existing case law as to whether or not a third party has a protectable interest in certain records. See, Norkin v. Hoey , 181 A.D.2d 248, 252 (1st Dept., 1992) (bank records); People v. DiRaffaele , 55 N.Y.2d 234 (1982) (telephone records). This measure would solely provide a procedural mechanism by which a person, whose information is contained in the records sought, may object to the subpoena.
Amendment History
Add, L 1962, ch 308, eff Sept 1, 1963; amd, L 1993, ch 98, § 5, eff Jan 1, 1994; L 2013, ch 205, § 1, eff July 31, 2013.
Source & verification. Provision text, History, and Advisory
Committee Notes are reproduced verbatim from the Consolidated Laws of New York.
Last verified July 21, 2026.
· Official source
Also known as: protective order motion New YorkNew York discovery abuse motionsuspend disclosure pending motion New Yorksuppress improperly obtained discovery New Yorkhow to stop a deposition New Yorklimit discovery request New York lawsuit