Ellis v. City of New York et al

Filing 13

PROTECTIVE ORDER: the parties' proposed protective order is "so ordered," except as modified herein. Ordered by Magistrate Judge Marilyn D. Go on 8/31/2015. (Attachments: # 1 Appendix) (Proujansky, Josh)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK
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KEVIN ELLIS,
Plaintiff,
- against -

ORDER
14-cv-7203(RRM)(MDG)

THE CITY OF NEW YORK, et al.,
Defendants.
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The parties have jointly moved for a 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.")
12-1.

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.

Accordingly, this

Court orders as follows:
I. The Proposed Protective Order, to which the parties have
stipulated and which is annexed hereto as Exhibit 1, is approved
and incorporated herein, except as modified below.
II. The parties may designate additional documents and
information as "Confidential Material" under paragraph 2(b) only
if the document is entitled to confidential treatment under
applicable legal principles, such as personnel and disciplinary

records; private personal, medical, mental health, or financial
information; information required by law to be maintained in
confidence by any person; and information protected from
disclosure by government regulations may be so designated.

Thus,

records or information which are publicly available or do not fall
within the preceding categories described may not be designated as
confidential.

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 determination of
the relevance or admissibility of any discovery materials.
III. Notwithstanding the provisions of this Protective Order,
the parties are advised that if they seek to seal documents as to
matters not related to discovery, such as dispositive motions or
trial materials, the Court may revisit the provisions of this
protective order in order to tailor more narrowly the appropriate
scope of sealing and redacting of information in light of the
right of the public to inspect judicial documents under both the
First Amendment and under common law.
IV.

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

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This process requires that

The Clerk's instructions for electronically filing sealed
documents are currently available on the Court's website at:
(continued...)
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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.
V. 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 Materials under seal, a
party must determine whether the material that gives rise to a
"Confidential" designation is relevant and necessary to the filing
and whether redaction of the confidential materials may eliminate
the need for sealing the document. If the material 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 Material in connection with a motion, they must, if
possible, propose a schedule for briefing of a motion which

1

(...continued)
https://www.nyed.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/forms/EfilingSe
aledCV.pdf
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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.
VI.

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 materials

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
materials redacted.
(B) If the confidential material constitutes a small
portion of a document, the parties must publicly file
the document with the confidential materials redacted.
VII.

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.
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

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portions of one filing (such as multiple exhibits annexed to a
document filed).
VIII.

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.
IX. Any Confidential Material which is publicly disclosed by
the affected persons shall, upon disclosure, automatically cease
to be confidential or highly confidential information entitled to
protection by this Order.

Such public disclosure includes an

filing with any governmental agency or department of any document
containing confidential material which is subject to access by the
public.
SO ORDERED.
Dated:

Brooklyn, New York
August 31, 2015
/s/___________________________
MARILYN D. GO
UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE

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