ChemImage Corporation v. Johnson & Johnson
- Jesse Furman
- 1:24-cv-02646
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In ChemImage v. Johnson & Johnson, Judge Furman denied sealing the billing exhibits and ordered redacted records filed publicly.
ChemImage Corporation must publicly re-file the relevant fee and cost records in redacted form. The ruling also affects the defendants, whose opposition to sealing was accepted, and the public’s access to records relevant to the fee request.
What happened
ChemImage Corporation sought to permanently seal Exhibits A through L supporting its request for attorneys’ fees and costs in ChemImage Corp. v. Johnson & Johnson et al. The exhibits included engagement-letter excerpts, invoices, costs, and expenses.
ChemImage argued that the materials contained privileged information, attorney work product, confidential business information, and details about legal work, vendors, and consultants. It also said it had already made limited redactions and submitted nearly 700 pages without other redactions for the court’s review.
Judge Jesse M. Furman agreed with the defendants that the exhibits should not be sealed in full. He denied ChemImage’s motion and directed it to file the relevant records again in redacted form.
The detailed version
- ChemImage Corporation v. Johnson & Johnson · No. 1:24-cv-02646
- Jesse Furman
- July 2, 2025
Background
ChemImage Corporation asked the court for permission to permanently seal Exhibits A through L submitted with its motion for attorneys’ fees and costs. The exhibits included an excerpt from its engagement letter, law-firm invoices, invoices from other providers and consultants, litigation costs, document-vendor invoices, and witness expenses.
ChemImage said some materials had been designated highly confidential under the parties’ confidentiality order. It also said Exhibits A through D contained limited redactions protecting attorney-client privileged and attorney-work-product material, and that it had applied additional limited redactions to protect its most sensitive privileged and work-product information. ChemImage argued that the records revealed confidential business information, legal work, trial strategy, billing information, and communications protected from disclosure. It offered to provide unredacted copies for the court’s private review.
Court’s analysis
The court stated that the public’s right to access judicial documents must be balanced against privacy and other competing interests. It concluded that the billing records were relevant to ChemImage’s pending request for attorneys’ fees and costs because the court would use them to assess the appropriate amount of any award. The court therefore found that the records were judicial documents subject to the presumption of public access.
The court agreed with the defendants that there was no basis to seal the exhibits in their entirety. It stated that the interests identified by ChemImage could support, at most, narrowly tailored redactions of relevant portions. The court also noted ChemImage’s representation that it had already redacted its most sensitive privileged and work-product information.
Disposition
Judge Jesse M. Furman denied ChemImage’s motion to seal. He directed ChemImage to re-file the relevant records on the docket in redacted form and directed the Clerk of Court to terminate the motion identified as ECF No. 209. This ruling addressed the sealing request; the opinion does not state the outcome of the underlying motion for attorneys’ fees and costs.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.