Milazzo v. Bank of New York Mellon Corporation
- Subramanian
- 1:23-cv-05437
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 7
In Milazzo v. Bank of New York Mellon, Judge Subramanian granted requests to seal documents, anonymize nonparties, and file only cited deposition pages.
The parties to the case and the nonparty employees whose identities, employment records, investigation materials, disciplinary information, and deposition testimony were addressed by the order.
What happened
In Milazzo v. Bank of New York Mellon Corporation, the defendant asked the court to protect information submitted with its summary-judgment motion. The requests concerned private employment records, investigation materials, text messages, and information about nonparty employees.
The defendant also asked to identify seven additional nonparty individuals with anonymous labels, file specified documents under seal or with redactions, and avoid filing nine complete deposition transcripts publicly. Instead, the parties proposed filing only the cited, redacted pages and giving the court access to the complete transcripts privately.
The court granted the requests. The parties must file the cited deposition pages with appropriate redactions and email the court a link to the full transcripts. Judge Arun Subramanian issued the order dated February 4, 2025.
The detailed version
- Milazzo v. Bank of New York Mellon Corporation · No. 1:23-cv-05437
- Subramanian
- Feb. 4, 2025
Background
The defendant, Bank of New York Mellon Corporation, submitted an application relating to materials it planned to use in support of its motion for summary judgment. The application asked the court to protect the identities and private information of nonparty employees and to approve an alternative way to provide deposition transcripts.
The requested protections involved the plaintiff’s performance reviews from 2016 through 2019; text messages; notes from nine employee-relations interviews; a nonparty’s Form U5; and disciplinary-action forms concerning three nonparty individuals. The defendant said these materials contained private employment information, internal investigation material, and potentially embarrassing communications. The parties had also agreed to use anonymous designations such as “Employees E–K” for certain nonparty individuals. The plaintiff consented to filing the listed documents under seal, subject to the court’s approval, but reserved the right to challenge some anonymous designations and stated that the complete deposition transcripts did not all warrant sealing.
Requests
The defendant asked the court to allow the parties to use anonymous designations for seven additional nonparty individuals, file the listed documents under seal or with redactions, and file only the cited pages from nine deposition transcripts on the public docket. The parties proposed providing the complete, unredacted transcripts to the court by email link or disk for private review if needed.
The application cited the court’s authority under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(c) and the requirement to balance the public’s interest in accessing judicial documents against competing privacy interests. The application emphasized that the people identified in the materials were not parties to the lawsuit and that the information concerned employment investigations, discipline, workplace experiences, and other private matters.
Ruling
The court stated that “the requests are GRANTED.” It ordered the parties to file the cited deposition-transcript pages with appropriate redactions and to email the court a link to the full transcripts. The order therefore granted the requested sealing, redaction, anonymization, and transcript-submission arrangements as described in the application. Judge Arun Subramanian signed the order on February 4, 2025. The order did not decide the underlying claims or the pending motion for summary judgment.
Read the full 7-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.