Williams v. Frank Martz Coach Company et al

Filing 60

PROTECTIVE ORDER: the plaintiff's proposed protective order (ct. doc. 43-2) is "so ordered" subject to the modifications in the attached order. Ordered by Magistrate Judge Marilyn D. Go on 5/29/2014. (Attachments: # 1 Appendix) (Proujansky, Josh)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK
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JERROLD WILLIAMS,
Plaintiff,
ORDER
- against CV 2013-1860 (MKB)(MDG)
FRANK MARTZ COACH COMPANY, et al.,
Defendants.
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Plaintiff and defendants Frank Martz Coach Company and
Patrick Graham dispute the scope of a proposed protective order of
confidentiality to protect documents produced in discovery.
ct. doc. 43.

See

Each party has submitted a proposed protective order

to the Court.

See ct. docs. 43-2, 44-1.

This Court finds, given the nature of the claims asserted
herein, that certain documents produced in discovery may contain
confidential proprietary or private information for which special
protection from public disclosure and from use for any purpose
other than litigating this action would be warranted.

The

defendants' proposed order would confer protection on documents
designated by a party unilaterally without an opportunity for
another party to object or a finding of good cause by the Court.
Typically, protective orders describe general categories of
information that are considered appropriate for confidential
treatment and allow the parties to designate such documents upon a
good faith belief that the documents are covered by those
categories.

See Koch v. Greenberg, 2012 WL 1449186, at *1

(S.D.N.Y. 2012).

Under such a procedure the "'good cause' showing

is temporarily postponed 'until a party or intervenor challenges
the continued confidential treatment of certain particular
documents' or testimony at which point 'the burden of establishing
good cause then lies with the party seeking to prevent the
disclosure.'"

Id. (quoting In re Parmalat Sec. Litig., 258 F.R.D.

236, 243 (S.D.N.Y. 2009)).

Defendants' proposed order would also

provide for the automatic sealing of confidential documents when
filed with the Court.
law.

Such a procedure is contrary to applicable

See Lugosch v. Pyramid Co. of Onondaga, 435 F.3d 110, 120

(2d Cir. 2006) ("broad and general findings by the trial court .
. . are not sufficient to justify closure").
Accordingly, this Court orders as follows:
1.

The proposed Protective Order submitted by plaintiff,

which is annexed hereto as Exhibit 1, is approved and incorporated
herein, except as modified by this Order.
2.

This Order only addresses the confidential treatment of

documents produced in discovery.

Nothing in this Order shall be

construed as conferring blanket protection on all disclosures or
responses to discovery or as constituting a determination of the
relevance or admissibility of any discovery materials.
3.

Paragraph 3.3 of the Proposed Order is modified to state

"this Order protects all copies, abstracts, charts, summaries, and
notes made from information properly designated as Confidential
Information."
4.

The parties must use best efforts to minimize the number

and extent of documents filed under seal.

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Prior to seeking leave

to file a document containing Confidential Information under seal,
a party must determine whether the information that gives rise to
a "Confidential" designation is relevant and necessary to the
filing and whether redaction of the Confidential Information may
eliminate the need for sealing the document.

If the information

that is confidential is not relevant to the filing and there is no
need to seal the remainder of the document, the document should be
filed unsealed, with the confidential information redacted.

If

the parties intend to file documents that include Confidential
Information in connection with a motion, they must, if possible,
propose a schedule for briefing of a motion which includes a short
delay in filing submissions so the parties will have time to
confer on minimizing the volume of documents that a party will
seek to file under seal or to avoid having to file a motion to
seal.
5.

If the information that is confidential is relevant to

the filing, the document containing such information may be filed
under seal, with the following limitations:
a.

If the document containing Confidential Information

is a document prepared or caused to be prepared by a party for
this litigation, such as an affidavit, memorandum of law or
deposition transcript, the parties must publicly file the
document with the Confidential Information redacted.
b.

If the Confidential Information constitutes a small

portion of a document, the parties must publicly file the
document with the Confidential Information redacted.

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6.

The parties are advised that if they seek to seal

documents in connection with dispositive motions or other matters
not related to discovery, the Court may revisit this protective
order in order to tailor more narrowly the appropriate scope of
sealing and redacting of information in order to protect the
right of the public to inspect judicial documents under both the
First Amendment and under common law.
7.

The parties must comply with procedures of the Clerk's

Office and this Court's Chambers Rules as to documents to be filed
under seal or filed with redactions.1

This process requires that a

party seeking to seal a document must first file a Motion for
Leave to e-file a sealed document, with the proposed sealed
documents attached to the motion.

The ECF system will notify the

party when the motion is granted and provide instructions for
filing the sealed document, using both the appropriate event for
the motion and the sealed document event.

If leave to file under

seal is granted and if the document contains relevant information
that is not confidential, the filing party will be required to
file publicly a copy of the sealed document with the Confidential
Information redacted.
8.

The parties should make best efforts to file sealed

documents electronically.

If a party has to file a hard copy, any

such submission must be accompanied by a cover sheet in accordance
with the form "Notice Regarding the filing of Exhibits in Paper

1

The Clerk's instructions for electronically filing sealed
documents are available on the Court's website at:
https://www.nyed.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/forms/EfilingSeal
edCV.pdf.

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Form," in the CM/ECF User's Guide.
electronically.

The Notice must also be filed

Any sealing envelope should clearly describe the

document to be sealed and identify the document number on the
docket sheet that corresponds to such sealed document.

Each

envelope submitted for sealing may contain only one document or
portions of one filing (such as multiple exhibits annexed to a
document filed).
9.

A party submitting a document under seal or filing a

document with redacted information must provide the District Judge
and/or Magistrate Judge to be handling the application or motion
at issue with a complete and un-redacted copy of the submission
that is marked to indicate that the document is filed under seal,
if applicable, and what portions of the submission are
confidential.

The first page of the document must clearly

indicate that the document or portions thereof are filed under
seal or with redactions and the assigned ECF document number.
SO ORDERED.
Dated:

Brooklyn, New York
May 29, 2014
_/s/_________________________
MARILYN D. GO
UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE

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