Razon et al v. Vyas

Filing 36

OPINION AND ORDER: The Court TAKES UNDER ADVISEMENT 30 Joint MOTION to Seal Confidential Settlement Agreement by Defendant Daksha Vyas and ORDERS the parties to file a brief by no later than 6/21/2017, as outlined in Order. The Court DIRECTS the Clerk of Court to maintain the Confidential General Release and Settlement Agreement 35 under SEAL until further order of the Court. Signed by Magistrate Judge John E Martin on 6/14/2017. (lhc)

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
NORTHERN DISTRICT OF INDIANA
HAMMOND DIVISION
ZAYDA RAZON, et al.,
Plaintiffs,
v.
DAKSHA VYAS,
Defendant.

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CAUSE NO. 2:16-CV-441-RL-JEM

OPINION AND ORDER
This matter is before the Court on a Joint Motion to Submit Confidential Settlement
Agreement under Seal [DE 30], filed by the parties on June 9, 2017.
Plaintiffs’ Complaint alleges claims for, among other things, minimum wage and overtime
violations under the Fair Labor Standards Act, so any settlement must be approved by the Court. See
29 U.S.C. § 216(c). The parties have submitted to the Court their Confidential General Release and
Settlement Agreement [DE 35] in hopes of receiving the required approval, and they now request
that the Court maintain the Agreement under seal.
“What happens in the federal courts is presumptively open to public scrutiny.” Hicklin
Eng’g, L.C. v. Bartell, 439 F.3d 346, 348 (7th Cir. 2006). “The public has a legitimate interest in
the record compiled in a legal proceeding because the public pays for the courts,” but this interest
may be overridden “if there is good cause for sealing part of the record.” Forst v. Smithkline
Beecham Corp., 602 F. Supp. 2d 960, 974 (E.D. Wis. 2009) (citing Citizens First Nat’l Bank of
Princeton v. Cincinnati Ins. Co., 178 F.3d 943, 944-45 (7th Cir. 1999)). “Any step that withdraws
an element of the judicial process from public view makes the ensuing decision look more like fiat
and requires rigorous justification” by the Court. Hicklin, 439 F.3d at 348. Moreover, “good cause
does not extend to those portions of the records so relevant to plaintiff's claim that they have been

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cited or quoted by the parties or the court in other documents.” Chapman v. Raemisch, No.
05-C-1254, 2009 WL 425813, at *7, (E.D. Wis. Feb. 20, 2009).
Northern District of Indiana Local Rule 5-3 provides, “The clerk may not maintain a filing
under seal unless authorized to do so by statute, court rule, or court order.” N.D. Ind. L.R. 5-3(a).
A motion to file documents under seal must justify the claim of secrecy, analyzing the applicable
legal criteria. Citizens First, 178 F.3d at 945; see also, e.g., Cnty Materials Corp. v. Allan Block
Corp., 502 F.3d 730, 740 (7th Cir. 2007); Baxter Int’l v. Abbott Lab., 297 F.3d 544, 547 (7th Cir.
2002); Union Oil Co. v. Leavell, 220 F.3d 562, 568 (7th Cir. 2000). The “decision of whether good
cause to file a document under seal rests solely with the Court.” Swarthout v. Ryla Teleservices, Inc.,
No. 4:11-CV-21, 2012 WL 5361756, at *2 (N.D. Ind. Oct. 30, 2012).
The parties argue that “confidentiality is a material term in the parties’ Confidential General
Release and Settlement Agreement, which the parties would have otherwise executed as a private,
confidential settlement agreement,” so the Agreement should be maintained under seal on the
docket. This argument, however, does not address why the parties’ need for secrecy in this case
outweighs the presumption that all court filings are public. Forst, 602 F. Supp. 2d at 974.“[T]he
mere fact that [a] settlement agreement contains a confidentiality provision is an insufficient interest
to overcome the presumption that an approved FLSA settlement agreement is a judicial record, open
to the public,” and courts have “roundly rejected” any argument to the contrary. Wolinsky v.
Scholastic, Inc., 900 F. Supp. 2d 332, 338 (S.D.N.Y 2012) (internal quotation marks and citations
omitted); see also Baker v. Dolgencorp, Inc., 818 F. Supp. 2d 940, 942-45 (E.D. Va. Jan. 19, 2011);
Dees v. Hydradry, Inc., 706 F. Supp. 2d 1227, 1245 (M.D. Fla. 2010); Hens v. ClientLogic
Operating Corp., No. 05-CV381S, 2010 WL 4340919, at *1-3 (W.D.N.Y. Nov. 2, 2010); Hanson

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v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., 2009 WL 1490582, at *1 (S.D. Fla. May 26, 2009); Stalnaker v. Novar
Corp., 293 F. Supp. 2d 1260, 1263-64 (M.D. Ala. 2003).
The parties appear to believe that any FLSA settlement agreement containing a
confidentiality provision can and must be maintained on the docket under seal, and cite cases in
which the settlement agreement was maintained under seal. See, e.g., Allen v. Payday Loan Store
of Ind., Inc., 2:13-CV-262, 2015 WL 11121539, at *1 (N.D. Ind. 2015); Swarthout, 2012 WL
5361756, at *3. However, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has not held
that FLSA cases are excepted from the standard balance-of-interests test described above. To the
contrary, the purpose of the Court-approval rule in FLSA cases is to “prevent consenting adults from
transacting about minimum wages and overtime pay.” Walton v. United Consumers Club, Inc., 786
F.2d 303, 306 (7th Cir. 1986). “Once the [FLSA] makes it impossible to agree on the amount of pay,
it is necessary to ban private settlements of disputes about pay. Otherwise the parties’ ability to settle
disputes would allow them to establish sub-minimum wages.” Id. Nothing about this court-approval
requirement prompts a blanket rule in favor of seal – quite the opposite. The presumption of public
access is especially important in overtime and minimum-wage cases where the Court prevents
litigants from contracting around the FLSA – the parties’ private dispute is imbued with public’s
interest in appropriate wage payments. Tran v. Thai, No. H-08-3650, 2009 WL 2477653, at *1 (S.D.
Tex. Aug. 12, 2009) (citing Stalnaker v. Novar Corp., 293 F. Supp. 2d 1260, 1264 (M.D. Ala.
2003)). This is exactly why the “strong presumption” in favor of public access exists: court records
“often concern issues in which the public has an interest, in which event concealing the records
disserves the values protected by the free-speech and free-press clauses of the First Amendment.”
Jessup v. Luther, 277 F.3d 926, 928 (7th Cir. 2002).

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In this case, the existence of a confidentiality provision in the parties’ Agreement is not, by
itself, justification enough to overcome the strong presumption of public access. Joo v. Kitchen
Table, Inc., 763 F. Supp. 2d 643, 647 (S.D.N.Y. 2011) (“Therefore, this Court joins the
overwhelming consensus of district courts that have considered the issue to hold that an FLSA
settlement cannot be sealed absent some showing that overcomes the presumption of public
access.”) (collecting cases).
Consistent with the foregoing discussion, the Court TAKES UNDER ADVISEMENT the
Joint Motion to Submit Confidential Settlement Agreement under Seal [DE 30] and ORDERS the
parties to file a brief by no later than June 21, 2017, detailing why the Agreement should be
maintained under seal despite the strong presumption that court filings remain public.
The Court DIRECTS the Clerk of Court to maintain the Confidential General Release and
Settlement Agreement [DE 35] under SEAL until further order of the Court. If the parties do not file
a brief sufficiently justifying why the Agreement should be maintained under seal by June 21, the
Court will remove the seal so that this case may proceed with the appropriate approval process.
SO ORDERED this 14th day of June, 2017.
s/ John E. Martin
MAGISTRATE JUDGE JOHN E. MARTIN
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
cc:

All counsel of record