State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company v. Accurate Medical, P.C. et al

Filing 110

ORDER granting in part and denying in part 108 Motion for Leave to Electronically File Document under Seal. This Court denies defendant Elzanaty's motion to file his motion papers under seal, but grants his more limited request to redact infor mation regarding the settlement amount and payments which are highlighted in his submissions to the Court. His request to redact similar information contained on pages 18, 20 and 22 of the transcript of the November 29, 2011 conference is granted. The Clerk of the Court is requested to arrange to redact those portions from the filed transcript. See attached. Ordered by Magistrate Judge Marilyn D. Go on 5/2/2012. (Albertsen, Joanne)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK
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STATE FARM MUTUAL AUTOMOBILE
INSURANCE COMPANY,
Plaintiff,
ORDER
- against CV 2007-0051 (ENV)(MDG)
ACCURATE MEDICAL, P.C., et al.,
Defendants.
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GO, United States Magistrate Judge:
On April 9, 2012, defendant Hiram Elzanaty moved for leave to
file under seal his opposition to plaintiff's Motion to Enforce the
Settlement Agreement and cross-motion concerning plaintiff's
alleged breach of the Agreement.

Sealing Mot. (ct. doc. 108).

In

an electronic order filed on April 10, 2012, this Court expressed
reluctance to seal all the submissions and scheduled a hearing for
April 13, 2012 to discuss whether some portions of the submissions
merited sealing.

At the hearing, this Court ordered Mr. Elzanaty

to send the Court an unredacted copy of the relevant motion papers
with his proposed redactions highlighted.
Apr. 13, 2012.

See Minute Entry dated

In his letter dated April 19, 2012,1 this defendant

also requested redaction of certain portions of the transcript of a
prior hearing held in the related lawsuit Elzanaty, et al. v. State
farm Mutual Automobile Ins. Co., et al., 11-CV-4878 (ENV) on

1

This submission was served on the Court and the other
parties by mail but was not filed on ECF.

November 29, 2011.

The other parties take no position on the

motion.
The Court has reviewed defendant Elzanaty's proposed
redactions contained in his April 19, 2012 submission.

The sole

type of information that the movant seeks to redact are
references to the settlement agreement previously signed by the
parties and non-parties concerning the amount of the settlement,
the payment schedule, the payments actually made by the parties
and the percentage of the settlement amount that various payments
represent.
In cases where the Court is not required to rule on the
fairness of a settlement, redactions of the monetary terms of a
settlement agreement may be appropriate.

As the Second Circuit

noted, although "[t]he public has a common law presumptive right
of access to judicial documents and likely a constitutional one
as well," redaction of settlement may be appropriate because "the
presumption, such as it [is], [is] a weak one under these
circumstances: The amount of the settlement was confidential
[and] the parties articulated the reasons for such
confidentiality . . ."

Gambale v. Deutsche Bank AG, 377 F.3d

133, 140, 143 (2d Cir. 2004).

In ruling on disputes that involve

a similar type of settlement agreement, courts in this circuit
routinely redact monetary terms from their orders.

See, e.g.,

Herrick Co., Inc. v. SCS Comm'cs, Inc., 251 F.3d 315, 320 (2d
Cir. 2001) (settlement amount was not disclosed to jury ruling on

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breach of settlement agreement); Pusey v. Delta Airlines, 2012 WL
893908 at *1 (E.D.N.Y. Feb. 7, 2012); Kelly v. Hunton & Williams,
1999 WL 759972 at *1 (E.D.N.Y. Sept. 21, 1999).
In analyzing this redaction request, this Court is also
mindful that "confidentiality encourage[d] parties to settle."
Blake v. Deutsche Bank AG, 2011 WL 2946374 at *2 (S.D.N.Y. July
18, 2011).

As in Gambale, the Settlement Agreement signed by the

parties in this matter, which was filed in this case under seal
(ct. doc. 92), contains an explicit confidentiality provision.
Furthermore, the Agreement states that defendants specifically
requested that term. Agreement at ¶ 15.

Finally, because the

parties are disputing provisions of the Agreement that are not
directly related to the monetary terms, "litigation of the
present action does not require disclosing the amount involved in
the Agreement."

Blake, 2011 WL 2946374 at *2.

Accordingly, this Court denies defendant Elzanaty's motion
to file his motion papers under seal, but grants his more limited
request to redact information regarding the settlement amount and
payments which are highlighted in his submissions to the Court.
His request to redact similar information contained on pages 18,
20 and 22 of the transcript of the November 29, 2011 conference
is granted.

The Clerk of the Court is requested to arrange to

redact those portions from the filed transcript.
Furthermore, all parties are directed to redact from their
motion papers to be filed information concerning the monetary

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terms of the Settlement Agreement and payments due or made under
the agreement.
Finally, since the amount of the payments and payment terms
do not appear to be material to the issues raised in the current
dispute amount the parties, the parties are relieved at this time
from filing or submitting unredacted versions of any redacted
filings.
SO ORDERED.
Dated:

Brooklyn, New York
May 2, 2012
/s/
MARILYN D. GO
UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE

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