Slice Insurance Technologies, Inc. v. Appalachian Underwriters, Inc.
- Lorna Schofield
- 1:24-cv-09803
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Slice Insurance Technologies v. Appalachian Underwriters, Judge Schofield ordered more briefing on whether complaint materials should remain sealed.
Slice Insurance Technologies, Inc., Appalachian Underwriters, Inc., and public access to the court filings at issue.
What happened
In Slice Insurance Technologies, Inc. v. Appalachian Underwriters, Inc., Slice filed parts of its complaint and exhibits under seal and asked the court to keep them from public view. The court had initially allowed that arrangement temporarily.
The court said Slice had not provided specific enough reasons to overcome the public’s right to inspect court records. Appalachian also filed three motions seeking to seal information in its dismissal motion, reply, and counterclaim, and those motions depended largely on the earlier temporary order.
Judge Schofield ordered Slice to file a letter of no more than five pages by October 22, 2025, explaining why each redacted part should remain sealed. Appalachian may file a response of no more than three pages by October 24, 2025. The order required more briefing rather than making a final ruling on continued sealing.
The detailed version
- Slice Insurance Technologies, Inc. v. Appalachian Underwriters, Inc. · No. 1:24-cv-09803
- Lorna Schofield
- Oct. 17, 2025
Background
Slice Insurance Technologies, Inc. filed the action on December 16, 2024. It filed portions of its complaint and several exhibits temporarily under seal and sought permission to file the civil complaint under seal. On December 17, 2024, the court conditionally approved that request, allowing a redacted complaint to appear publicly while an unredacted complaint was filed under seal in paper form.
In April, May, and August 2025, Appalachian Underwriters, Inc. filed three motions to seal. Two concerned information in Appalachian’s partial motion to dismiss and its reply; the third concerned information in Appalachian’s counterclaim. The court stated that these motions relied largely on the temporary sealing order and addressed the same general information as Slice’s original request.
Court’s Analysis
The court explained that judicial documents are presumed to be publicly accessible. The party seeking secrecy must make a specific, fact-based showing that disclosure would cause a sufficiently serious injury. General concerns about competitors or confidential business dealings are not enough, and a confidentiality provision in an agreement does not by itself overcome the presumption of public access.
The court found that Slice’s original request used broad, general, and conclusory arguments and did not identify the competitive business interest supporting the sealing of each particular piece of information. For example, Slice sought to seal any mention of a particular agreement but did not explain how publicly disclosing the agreement’s existence would injure Slice.
Order
The court ordered supplemental briefing to evaluate both the appropriateness of the temporary sealing order and Appalachian’s three pending sealing motions. Slice must file, by October 22, 2025, a letter motion of no more than five pages explaining why each redacted portion of the complaint and its exhibits should remain sealed and following the court’s individual rule. Appalachian may, but is not required to, file a response of no more than three pages by October 24, 2025.
The opinion does not state that the court finally granted or denied the sealing requests. It orders additional briefing before assessing whether the materials should remain sealed.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.