Odermatt v. The Mount Sinai Hospital
Emily Odermatt v. The Mount Sinai Hospital, Mount Sinai Health System Inc., and Mount Sinai Hospitals Group, Inc.
- Rochon
- 1:24-cv-05250
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 1
In Odermatt v. Mount Sinai, Judge Rochon granted defendants’ request to seal medical records and directed the clerk to terminate the related motion.
Emily Odermatt’s medical records will remain unavailable to the public through the sealed docket entry. The order also affects the defendants’ filing of those records and terminates the related motion.
What happened
In Odermatt v. The Mount Sinai Hospital, the defendants asked to file Emily Odermatt’s medical records under seal while seeking summary judgment. The records covered September 26, 2023, through January 19, 2024.
The court granted the request to seal the records because medical information raises strong privacy concerns that outweigh the general presumption of public access to court documents. The court ordered that the docket entry containing the records remain sealed.
Judge Jennifer L. Rochon also directed the clerk to terminate the related motion. The opinion does not decide the defendants’ summary-judgment motion.
The detailed version
- Odermatt v. The Mount Sinai Hospital · No. 1:24-cv-05250
- Rochon
- Aug. 29, 2025
Background
Emily Odermatt, identified in the filing as a self-represented plaintiff, is suing The Mount Sinai Hospital, Mount Sinai Health System Inc., and Mount Sinai Hospitals Group, Inc. The defendants were seeking summary judgment. In connection with that motion, the defendants asked permission to file medical records under seal.
The letter requesting sealing identified Odermatt’s medical records from September 26, 2023, through January 19, 2024, as confidential medical information. The filing sought to submit those records as an exhibit to a declaration supporting the summary-judgment motion.
Ruling
The court granted the defendants’ request to file the records under seal. It explained that the public generally has a right to access judicial documents, but that right is not absolute and must be balanced against competing interests. The court found a strong privacy interest in medical information and ordered that Docket Entry 152, which contains Odermatt’s medical records, remain under seal.
The clerk was directed to terminate the motion at Docket Entry 151. This order addressed sealing only; the provided text does not state a ruling on the defendants’ summary-judgment motion.
Read the full 1-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.