Lev-Ary v. Manhattan Fertility Services LLC
- Ho
- 1:23-cv-05504
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Lev-Ary v. Manhattan Fertility Services, Judge Ho granted sealing of medical records filed with a summary-judgment motion.
Larisa Lev-Ary’s medical privacy interests, Advanced Fertility Services’s exhibit, and public access to ECF No. 80-11 were affected. Case participants retained access to the exhibit, while the public docket was to contain a redacted version.
What happened
In Lev-Ary v. Manhattan Fertility Services LLC, Larisa Lev-Ary asked the court to restrict public access to the first five pages of an exhibit filed by Advanced Fertility Services with its summary-judgment motion. She said those pages contained sensitive medical information, including details about medical procedures, billing, and egg retrieval.
The court recognized that documents filed with a summary-judgment motion generally receive a strong presumption of public access. It nevertheless found that protecting Lev-Ary’s medical records was an important privacy interest and that limiting access to the first five pages was appropriately narrow.
Judge Dale E. Ho granted the application. The Clerk was directed to restrict access to the exhibit to case participants, and Advanced Fertility Services was ordered to refile the exhibit publicly with its first five pages redacted by April 30, 2025.
The detailed version
- Lev-Ary v. Manhattan Fertility Services LLC · No. 1:23-cv-05504
- Ho
- Apr. 23, 2025
Background
Larisa Lev-Ary asked the court to restrict public access to the first five pages of ECF No. 80-11, an exhibit to Advanced Fertility Services’s motion for summary judgment. The requested pages contained Lev-Ary’s address and sensitive medical information. The application sought to remove the exhibit from public view and require Advanced Fertility Services to refile it with the first five pages redacted.
Court’s analysis
The court treated the exhibit as a “judicial document” because it was filed in connection with a pending summary-judgment motion. Judicial documents generally carry a common-law presumption of public access, and that presumption is particularly strong for documents filed in support of summary judgment. The court explained, however, that sealing is permitted when necessary to protect an important interest and when the restriction is narrowly tailored.
The court found that protecting medical records qualified as an important privacy interest. It also found the requested restriction appropriately limited because it concerned only the first five pages containing detailed medical information, rather than the entire case or exhibit.
Ruling
The court granted Lev-Ary’s application. It directed the Clerk of Court to restrict access to ECF No. 80-11 to case participants. It also ordered Advanced Fertility Services to refile ECF No. 80-11 on the public docket by April 30, 2025, with the first five pages redacted.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.