Brown v. St. Kitts Marriott Resort and the Royal Beach Casino et al

Filing 11

PROTECTIVE ORDER: the parties proposed protective order (ct. doc. 8) is "so ordered" as modified herein. Ordered by Magistrate Judge Marilyn D. Go on 3/19/2015. (Attachments: # 1 Appendix) (Proujansky, Josh)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK
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VERONICA BROWN,
Plaintiff,
ORDER
- against CV 2014-5960 (SLT)(MDG)
ST. KITTS MARRIOTT RESORT AND THE
ROYAL BEACH CASINO and MARRIOTT
INTERNATIONAL, INC.,
Defendants.
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The parties have moved for a proposed protective order of
confidentiality to protect certain information that may be
produced in discovery and submitted a proposed stipulated
protective order (the "Proposed Protective Order").
8.

See ct. doc.

This Court finds, given the nature of the claims asserted

herein, that certain documents produced in discovery may contain
confidential private information for which special protection
from public disclosure and from use for any purpose other than
litigating this action would be warranted.

However, the parties'

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)).
Accordingly, this Court orders as follows:
1.

The proposed Protective Order submitted by the parties,

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

Notwithstanding the agreement among the parties, no

party may designate as "Confidential Information" documents that
are not entitled to confidential treatment under applicable legal
principles.

"Confidential Information" shall include private

personal, medical or financial information; proprietary
information; confidential business strategies, research or
development information; records containing private competitive
information; information required by law to be maintained in
confidence by any person; and information protected from
disclosure by government regulations.

In addition, this Order

protects all copies, abstracts, charts, summaries, and notes made
from material properly designated as Confidential.

Nothing in

this Order shall be construed as conferring blanket protection on
all disclosures or responses to discovery or as constituting a

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determination of the relevance or admissibility of any discovery
materials.
3.

If a Receiving Party objects to the designation of any

Confidential Information as confidential, he or she shall state
such objection in writing to counsel for the Producing Party, and
counsel shall in good faith attempt to resolve such conflict.

If

the conflict cannot be resolved among counsel, the objecting
party shall, within 45 days of the initial objection, request the
Court to remove the designation.

Any such materials or

information shall be treated as Confidential until the parties
resolve the conflict or the Court issues its rulìng regarding the
conflict.
4.

The parties must use best efforts to minimize the number

and extent of documents filed under seal.

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

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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.
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

1

This process

The Clerk's instructions for electronically filing sealed
documents are available on the Court's website at:
(continued...)
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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 Form," in the CM/ECF User's Guide.
be filed electronically.

The Notice must also

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

1

(...continued)
https://www.nyed.uscourts.gov/forms/steps-e-filing-sealed-documen
ts-civil-cases.

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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
March 19, 2015
_/s/_________________________
MARILYN D. GO
UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE

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