Accettola v. He
- Lewis Liman
- 1:23-cv-01983
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Accettola v. He, Judge Liman denied reconsideration of an order to unseal a letter but allowed Plaintiff until June 28 to make required showings.
Hong Danielle Accettola and the parties concerning whether docket entry 43 will remain sealed; the public docket may receive the letter if the required showing is not made.
What happened
In Accettola v. He, Plaintiff Hong Danielle Accettola, through counsel, asked the court to reconsider its decision to unseal a letter filed at docket entry 43 and to deny her earlier sealing request.
Accettola argued that another judge’s order might prevent the letter from being publicly filed and that the court may have known about that order. She also asked the court to delay unsealing the letter so the parties could provide the other order or explain whether disclosure would violate it.
Judge Lewis Liman denied the motion for reconsideration. He gave Accettola until 4:00 p.m. on June 28, 2024, to show both that public filing would violate another court order and that she had tried to obtain judicial relief allowing the filing; otherwise, the letter would be unsealed.
The detailed version
- Accettola v. He · No. 1:23-cv-01983
- Lewis Liman
- June 25, 2024
Background
Plaintiff Hong Danielle Accettola, through counsel, sought reconsideration of the court’s earlier decision concerning a letter filed at docket entry 43. The earlier decision would permit the Clerk to unseal the letter. The motion also asked the court to delay unsealing until June 28 so the parties could submit a copy of an order entered by another judge or explain whether disclosure of the letter would violate that order.
The opinion text does not identify the other judge or provide the terms of that other order. Accettola’s counsel said that Accettola believed the court knew about the order because the court had restricted access to one of its own orders.
Legal standard
The court described reconsideration as an extraordinary remedy generally available only when the moving party identifies a controlling change in the law, new evidence, a clear error, or a need to prevent serious unfairness. The court also stated that reconsideration is not a way to relitigate old issues or obtain another hearing on the merits.
Ruling
Judge Lewis Liman denied the motion for reconsideration. He stated that Accettola had to show two things to keep the letter from being filed publicly: first, that public filing would violate a court order; and second, that if such an order prevented public filing, Accettola had tried to intervene and obtain judicial relief permitting the public filing.
The court found that Accettola had not made those required showings. It also stated that Accettola had not shown how she could be sanctioned for violating an order whose terms had not been communicated to her.
The court gave Accettola one last opportunity to make the required showings by 4:00 p.m. on Friday, June 28, 2024. The court directed that the letter be unsealed if she failed to make a showing satisfactory to the court by that deadline.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.