Xinuos, Inc. v. International Business Machines Corporation
- Cathy Seibel
- 7:22-cv-09777
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 5
In Xinuos v. IBM, Magistrate Judge Reznik granted Xinuos’s sealing motion in part and denied it in part, while granting IBM and Red Hat’s motion.
Xinuos, IBM, Red Hat, and members of the public seeking access to the court filings were affected. Exhibits F, G, H, and I remain restricted, while Exhibit J was made publicly viewable.
What happened
In Xinuos, Inc. v. International Business Machines Corporation, Xinuos asked the court to seal Exhibits F through J and hide references to them in a brief about a discovery dispute. IBM and Red Hat separately asked to seal Exhibits F through I and related references.
The court said filings connected to discovery disputes receive a lower presumption of public access than filings connected to trials or motions that could end the case. It also found that protecting confidential, commercially sensitive business information can justify sealing court filings.
Magistrate Judge Reznik granted Xinuos’s motion in part and denied it in part, and granted IBM and Red Hat’s motion. Exhibits F, G, H, and I will remain sealed, and references to them must be redacted. The request to seal Exhibit J and references to it was denied, and the clerk was directed to make that exhibit publicly viewable.
The detailed version
- Xinuos, Inc. v. International Business Machines Corporation · No. 7:22-cv-09777
- Cathy Seibel
- Aug. 19, 2024
Background
Xinuos filed a letter brief concerning a discovery dispute and attached ten exhibits. It asked to seal Exhibits F, G, H, I, and J and to redact references to those exhibits in the brief. Xinuos said IBM and Red Hat had produced the exhibits and designated them confidential under the parties’ protective order.
IBM and Red Hat filed a separate motion asking to seal Exhibits F, G, H, and I and to redact references to them. They said those exhibits contained confidential commercially sensitive information. They did not ask to seal Exhibit J or redact references to it.
Legal standard
The court explained that filed materials relevant to the court’s work generally carry a presumption of public access, meaning the public ordinarily has a right to see them. That presumption is lower for materials filed in connection with discovery disputes than for materials introduced at trial or submitted with motions seeking a final decision. Even so, the court had to make specific findings that sealing was necessary to protect an important interest and was narrowly tailored to that purpose.
The court recognized that protecting confidential business and financial information can outweigh the public’s qualified right of access. It reviewed Exhibits F, G, H, and I and found that they facially contained commercially sensitive information. The court determined that sealing those exhibits in their entirety was the narrowest appropriate method of protection.
Rulings
Xinuos’s motion to seal was granted in part and denied in part. IBM and Red Hat’s motion to seal was granted. Exhibits F, G, H, and I were ordered sealed, and references to those exhibits in Xinuos’s letter brief were ordered redacted. Because IBM and Red Hat did not assert that Exhibit J contained commercially sensitive information, the court denied the request to seal Exhibit J and to redact references to it.
Xinuos was directed to file a version of its brief that redacted references to Exhibits F, G, H, and I but not Exhibit J. The clerk was directed to keep the docket entries for Exhibits F, G, H, and I sealed and to change the viewing level for Exhibit J to public. The court also directed the clerk to terminate the two pending letter motions.
Read the full 5-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.