United States v. LABQ Clinical Diagnostics, LLC
- Lewis Liman
- 1:22-cv-00751
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In United States v. LABQ Clinical Diagnostics, Judge Liman granted two sealing motions protecting medical and personal email information.
The Government, LABQ Clinical Diagnostics, LLC and the other parties in the two cases, Yampola 2022 Charitable Lead Annuity Trust, Malka and Moshe Landau, and individuals whose medical or personal email information appears in the filings.
What happened
United States v. LABQ Clinical Diagnostics, LLC concerns unresolved requests to keep court filings sealed. The court had ordered the parties to discuss which sealing requests still needed decisions, and the Government reported that some no longer required resolution.
The court granted the Government’s request to keep a declaration containing confidential patient information under seal. It also granted Yampola 2022 Charitable Lead Annuity Trust’s request to keep an attachment with personal email addresses under seal. The court found that these privacy interests outweighed the usual presumption that court records should be publicly accessible.
Judge Liman directed the Clerk of Court to close specified docket entries and to unseal the corresponding documents identified in a table in both cases. The supplied opinion text does not show that table, so it does not identify all of the documents to be unsealed.
The detailed version
- United States v. LABQ Clinical Diagnostics, LLC · No. 1:22-cv-00751
- Lewis Liman
- June 24, 2025
Background
On June 6, 2025, the court ordered the parties to confer about which motions to seal remained unresolved and which still required decisions. The Government later reported that some sealing motions no longer required resolution. The opinion’s reproduced table identifying those matters is blank or corrupted in the supplied text.
Rulings on the sealing motions
The Government continued to seek relief on Dkt. No. 229: keeping Dkt. No. 233, a supplemental declaration by Karen Lowe, under seal. The declaration contains confidential patient information reviewed by Lowe, whom the opinion identifies as a Lead Program Analyst within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. A redacted version, Dkt. No. 232, removes the patient’s name, date of birth, and address. The court recognized a general presumption of public access to judicial documents but held that the strong privacy interest in medical information outweighed that presumption. The Government’s motion at Dkt. No. 229 to retain Dkt. No. 233 under seal was granted.
Yampola 2022 Charitable Lead Annuity Trust, identified as YCLAT, continued to seek relief on Dkt. No. 332: keeping personal email addresses redacted from an attachment to a letter at Dkt. No. 333-1. A redacted version appears at Dkt. No. 334-1. The court held that personal and financial information can create significant privacy interests, and that the limited redactions would protect the privacy interests of Malka and Moshe Landau and prevent improper use of the documents. YCLAT’s motion at Dkt. No. 332 to retain Dkt. No. 333-1 under seal was granted.
Clerk’s directives and effect
The court directed the Clerk of Court to close Dkt. Nos. 229, 304, 319, 332, and 350 in Case No. 22-cv-10313, and Dkt. Nos. 255, 265, and 280 in Case No. 22-cv-00751. The Clerk was also directed to unseal the corresponding documents listed in the table, in both dockets. Because that table is not legible in the supplied opinion text, the specific documents to be unsealed cannot be determined here. Judge Lewis J. Liman entered the order on June 24, 2025.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.