Phillips v. The National Basketball Association

Background

Three basketball referees brought this case against the National Basketball Association and NBA Services Corp. They claim the NBA discriminated against them based on religion by rejecting their applications for exemptions from COVID-19 vaccination. The parties filed competing motions for summary judgment and motions seeking to exclude expert testimony. In connection with those motions, the parties jointly asked the court to keep various supporting materials under seal, sometimes in full and sometimes with proposed redactions.

Legal standard

The court applied the Second Circuit’s three-step test for sealing judicial documents. First, it determines whether the material is a judicial document to which a presumption of public access applies. Second, it determines the weight of that presumption. Third, it identifies legitimate interests favoring confidentiality and balances them against public access.

The court held that all materials filed for consideration of the summary-judgment and expert-testimony motions were judicial documents. Because those materials concerned motions asking the court to decide substantive rights, the presumption of access applied. The court considered the materials’ relevance to the judicial function, but it did not decide whether it would ultimately rely on any particular document.

Court’s analysis

The court found the parties’ requests generally overbroad. It explained that proposed sealed materials included entire expert reports containing information such as credentials, assignments, lists of reviewed materials, publicly reported information, generalized concepts, and generalized descriptions of testimony. The proposed redactions also covered material that did not present a competing interest strong enough to overcome public access.

The court recognized that private, sensitive information about non-parties and proprietary business information can sometimes justify sealing. But it found that most of the proposed material did not significantly implicate those interests. The court also concluded that information about COVID-19 procedures and policies, as well as scheduling strategies affecting the cost of accommodating the plaintiffs’ requested exemptions, was highly relevant to the dispute. That relevance made the public-access interest particularly strong.

Ruling

Judge Robert W. Lehrburger granted in part and denied in part the parties’ request to seal. The court permitted the following information to remain under seal:

- Identified private health information of non-parties connected to named individuals. Anonymized health information could not be redacted, and redaction had to be limited to a person’s name when that would anonymize the information. - Identified religious beliefs of non-parties, including NBA personnel, connected to named individuals. Anonymized religious-belief information could not be redacted, and redaction had to be limited to a person’s name when that would anonymize the information. - Party and non-party personal email addresses. - NBA personnel work email addresses. - W-2 or similar forms. - Specific numerical dollar or percentage figures for costs, financial losses, or other particularly sensitive business financial information, excluding dollar and percent signs themselves.

The court directed the Clerk of Court to terminate the letter motion at Dkt. 249.