Z.Q. v. New York City Department of Education

Background

The plaintiffs requested permission to file under seal limited portions of a signed stipulation concerning A.W. and J.W. The stipulation states that A.W. and J.W. would withdraw as named representatives of the proposed class and subclasses and that their individual claims would be voluntarily dismissed without prejudice, meaning they could be brought again. A.W. and J.W. are identified in the stipulation as representing themselves without attorneys.

The requested sealing covered A.W.’s full name and the home address of A.W. and J.W. The plaintiffs told the court that defendants did not oppose the request. They argued that the privacy interests in protecting this identifying information outweighed the presumption that judicial documents should be publicly accessible.

Court’s analysis

The court treated the stipulation as a judicial document subject to a presumption of public access. It nevertheless concluded that A.W.’s and J.W.’s privacy interests outweighed that presumption. The court noted that the case involved the school system in which J.W. was still enrolled, that the public interest in the identifying information was minimal, and that the proposed redactions were narrowly limited. Most of the stipulation would remain unredacted.

Ruling

Judge Tarnofsky granted the application to file the redacted portions of the stipulation under seal. The Clerk of Court was directed to terminate ECF 277. The order itself does not separately state a disposition of the stipulation’s withdrawal or dismissal terms; those terms appear in the attached stipulation.