Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. A&A Appliance, Inc.

Filing 134

ORDER: This matter is before the Court on Plaintiff's Motion for Leave to Restrict Documents. ECF No. 121 . The Court GRANTS Plaintiff's Motion for Leave to Restrict Documents. ECF No. 121 . Accordingly, it is hereby ORDERED that the Cle rk of the Court shall maintain the following documents at Restriction Level 1 pursuant to D.C.COLO.L.CivR 7.2, limiting access thereto to the parties and the Court: ECF No. 103 -7, ECF No. 103 -9, ECF No. 103 -11, ECF No. 106 -9, and ECF No . 106 -10. The Clerk of the Court is further directed to maintain all exhibits within ECF No. 109 and all exhibits within ECF No. 112 at Restriction Level 1 pursuant to D.C.COLO.L.CivR 7.2, limiting access thereto to the parties and the Court. Entered by Magistrate Judge Cyrus Y. Chung on 3/7/2025.(dgumb, )

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLORADO
Civil Action No. 23-cv-02456-DDD-CYC
EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION,
Plaintiff,
v.
A&A APPLIANCE, INC.,
Defendant.
______________________________________________________________________________
ORDER
______________________________________________________________________________
Cyrus Y. Chung, United States Magistrate Judge.
This matter is before the Court on Plaintiff’s Motion for Leave to Restrict Documents.
ECF No. 121. In the motion, the plaintiff asks the Court to restrict at Level 1 certain documents
filed on the docket that consist of medical records of the Charging Party. The defendant argues
that the plaintiff fails to meet the requirements of D.C.COLO.LCivR 7.2, the plaintiff was not
diligent in seeking restriction, and that there is a heightened public interest in the medical records
because this case was brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”).
See generally ECF No. 126.
In considering the parties’ arguments, the Court is mindful that “[t]he public has a
fundamental interest in understanding the disputes presented to and decided by the courts, so as
to assure that they are run fairly and that judges act honestly.” Huddleson v. City of Pueblo,
Colo., 270 F.R.D. 635, 636 (D. Colo. 2010) (citing Crystal Grower’s Corp. v. Dobbins, 616 F.2d
458, 461 (10th Cir. 1980)). As a result, there is a presumption in favor of public access to judicial
records that may be overcome where “countervailing interests heavily outweigh the public

interests in access.” United States v. Bacon, 950 F.3d 1286, 1293 (10th Cir. 2020) (quotation
marks omitted). “Therefore, the district court, in exercising its discretion to seal or unseal
judicial records, must weigh the interests of the public, which are presumptively paramount,
against those advanced by the parties.” Id. (quotation marks and indication of internal
modifications omitted). The burden is on the party seeking to restrict access “to articulate a
sufficiently significant interest that will justify continuing to override the presumption of public
access.” Id. (quotation marks omitted). And if the Court finds a sufficiently significant interest
that justifies restriction, “denial of public access to the record must be narrowly tailored to serve
the interest being protected.” Whitaker v. Silver Key Bd. of Dir., No. 19-cv-01052-RBJ-KMT,
2020 WL 2041349, at *2 (D. Colo. Apr. 28, 2020).
While the defendant makes much of the fact that the case is brought by the EEOC and the
fact that the case is premised on the idea that the Charging Party alleges that she is disabled
under the ADA and required reasonable accommodations, ECF No. 126 at 1-2, 5, the plaintiff
has the better argument in this matter.
First, as the plaintiff argues, the parties entered into a Protective Order governing the
exchange of discovery in this case in which both parties recognized that “medical records or
other health-related information” of the Charging Party should be designated as confidential in
this case and would therefore be subject to limited disclosure as part of this litigation. ECF No.
32 ¶¶ 4-5. The documents at issue were designated as confidential in this case, which restricted
any party from disclosing them to the public without the consent of the party that produced the
document or an Order of the court. Id. ¶ 5. However, the defendant filed the following
documents publicly despite their confidential designation: ECF Nos. 103-7, 103-9, 103-11, 1069, and 106-10. It does not appear that the defendant has challenged the designation of these

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documents as confidential pursuant to the Protective Order. ECF No. 32 ¶ 9. A review of the
documents reveals that they are “medical records or other health-related information” of the
Charging Party and, therefore, fall within the agreed definition of confidential information. Id. ¶
4. As such, at a minimum, the defendant should have complied with the terms of the Protective
Order before publicly disclosing the documents.
But, of course, the parties’ agreement that specific information should not be shared with
the public is not the end of the analysis. As noted above, the Court must consider the
presumption of public access to judicial records in determining if a document should be
restricted. In this regard, the Court agrees with the plaintiff that these medical records are “of
little value to the public and do[ ] not impact the public’s understanding of the case” because the
unrestricted filings that are available to the public in this case include the information that could
be of interest to the public. ECF No. 121 at 2. The information included in the medical records in
dispute would either be redundant of the publicly disclosed information or irrelevant to the issues
in dispute. And, notably, some of the irrelevant information includes the medical history of the
Charging Party’s family members who have not put their medical information in dispute in this
case. For these reasons, there is a sufficiently significant interest that justifies restriction of the
documents identified by the plaintiff at Level 1. See Robinson v. Stumph, No. 18-cv-01851MSK-KMT, 2021 WL 3675173, at *6 (D. Colo. Aug. 19, 2021) (restricting medical records at
Level 1, but balancing the plaintiff’s privacy interest with the public’s interest in the lawsuit by
including pertinent information from the medical records in the Court’s decision); Whitaker,
2020 WL 2041349, at *2 (granting motion to restrict references in defendant’s motion to medical
conditions not at issue in disability discrimination case, noting “the exact nature” of the medical
condition “is particularly personal information, and is of a kind that courts usually do protect”).

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CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, the Court GRANTS Plaintiff’s Motion for Leave to Restrict
Documents. ECF No. 121.
Accordingly, it is hereby ORDERED that the Clerk of the Court shall maintain the
following documents at Restriction Level 1 pursuant to D.C.COLO.L.CivR 7.2, limiting access
thereto to the parties and the Court:
•
•
•
•
•

ECF No. 103-7,
ECF No. 103-9,
ECF No. 103-11,
ECF No. 106-9, and
ECF No. 106-10.
The Clerk of the Court is further directed to maintain all exhibits within ECF No. 109

and all exhibits within ECF No. 112 at Restriction Level 1 pursuant to D.C.COLO.L.CivR 7.2,
limiting access thereto to the parties and the Court.
Entered this 7th day of March, 2025, at Denver, Colorado.
BY THE COURT:

____________________________________

Cyrus Y. Chung
United States Magistrate Judge

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