“Protecting Reputation Is Not Enough to Overcome Public Access” to Court Records
From the July 11 decision in Lask v. Fallon, by Magistrate Judge James Wicks (E.D.N.Y.):
Following resolution of this case, Plaintiff now seeks to seal a docket entry of an otherwise public record—a court decision issued by the Hon. Loretta Preska in an unrelated case that was filed in this case in support of an earlier motion to dismiss…. [T]his is [the third] attempt to remove or seal this document from the court record…. And in this case, three times is not a charm and must be denied (again).
In this latest motion, Plaintiff moved for the identical relief that was before the Hon. Judge Rachel P. Kovner, which was denied. In relevant part, Judge Kovner wrote:
The challenged order, submitted as an exhibit in support of defendant Fallon’s motion to dismiss, easily qualifies as a judicial document…. ‘[T]he general and deeply rooted rule is that the presumptive right of access is afforded strong weight when applied to documents that play a central role in determining litigants’ substantive rights—conduct at the heart of Article III.’ … And … to the extent plaintiff asserts a privacy interest, ‘[t]he fact that a document has been publicly available weighs against restricting public access to it.’
But that’s not all. That first application to seal was filed only after Judge Kovner denied Plaintiff’s motion to strike the document from the docket. Since those two rulings, only two circumstances changed, namely, the parties consented to the undersigned [Magistrate Judge] for all purposes … and the case settled. Plaintiff argues now that the case is resolved and that the documents requested to be sealed are “not part of the adjudicative process in this case” and so, the motion to seal should now be granted. For the reasons that follow, Plaintiff’s Motion to Seal is DENIED….
“A judicial document is not simply a document filed with the court, but one that is ‘relevant to the performance of the judicial function and useful in the judicial process.'” … Generally, motions to dismiss have been deemed a judicial document…. Here, Plaintiff seeks to seal an exhibit to Defendants[‘] … Motion to Dismiss and redact paragraph 21 of Defendants’ Declaration in Support of the Motion to Dismiss. Thus
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