In a personal injury action, can a plaintiff obtain surveillance footage of the scene of injury?

Having acknowledged this procedural constraint, we now [80 N.Y.2d 193] turn to the unique problems posed by surveillance films. Personal injury defendants secure surveillance materials in order to verify the extent of a plaintiff's purported injuries and introduce them because they are powerful and immediate images that cast doubt upon the plaintiff's claims. And indeed, if accurate and authentic, a surveillance film that undercuts a plaintiff's claims of injury may be devastatingly probative. At the same time, however, film and videotape are extraordinarily manipulable media. Artful splicing and deceptive lighting are but two ways that an image can be skewed and perception altered. As one court has noted, "[t]he camera may be an instrument of deception. It can be misused. Distances may be minimized or exaggerated. Lighting, focal lengths, and camera angles all make a difference. Action may be slowed down or speeded up. The editing and splicing of films may change the chronology of events. An emergency situation may be made to appear commonplace. That which has occurred once, can be described as an example of an event which recurs frequently * * * Thus, that which purports to be a means to reach the truth may be distorted, misleading, and false" (Snead v. American Export-Isbrandtsen Lines, 59 F.R.D. 148, 150).