Blanchard v. Kyndryl Holdings
- Philip Halpern
- 7:25-cv-02971
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 6
In Blanchard v. Kyndryl, Judge Halpern granted a conference request about IBM documents and granted an unopposed motion to seal exhibits.
Randall Blanchard, Kyndryl Holdings, Inc., and non-party International Business Machines Corporation (IBM), particularly regarding the proposed use and production of confidential documents.
What happened
In Blanchard v. Kyndryl Holdings, Inc., non-party International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) objected to producing 165 documents that had been produced in a separate case and marked confidential. Randall Blanchard asked to use the documents in his lawsuit against Kyndryl.
IBM argued that nearly all of the documents were outside the court-ordered discovery period or irrelevant to Blanchard’s claims. Blanchard argued that the documents could support his allegations of a company-wide pattern of age discrimination and asked the court to reject IBM’s objection.
Judge Philip M. Halpern granted the request for a conference about IBM’s objection and scheduled it for November 25, 2025. The court also granted an unopposed motion to seal exhibits and directed that the pending letter motions be terminated; the text does not show a final ruling on whether the documents must be produced.
The detailed version
- Blanchard v. Kyndryl Holdings · No. 7:25-cv-02971
- Philip Halpern
- Nov. 17, 2025
Background
Randall Blanchard asked to use 165 documents that IBM had produced in a separate case involving IBM. Those documents were designated confidential under a protective order in that separate case. After a conference on October 30, 2025, the court directed Blanchard to apply for permission to provide the documents to Kyndryl. The court granted that application subject to 10 days’ notice to IBM, which the protective order allowed IBM to oppose.
IBM, which was not a party to Blanchard’s lawsuit, objected to producing the documents or alternatively sought to quash the request. IBM argued that the documents were irrelevant and that all but two fell outside the discovery period set by the court. IBM stated that 103 documents dated from 2013 through 2017, 55 dated from 2018 through November 2021, and seven postdated Kyndryl’s formation in November 2021. IBM also argued that two of the later documents were publicly available.
Blanchard opposed IBM’s objection. He argued that the documents supported allegations that IBM had developed a company-wide pattern of age discrimination that Kyndryl received while it was an internal IBM company. He also argued that the documents were relevant under federal subpoena and discovery rules and asked the court to reaffirm its earlier direction allowing production.
Court’s Action
The order states “Application granted” and schedules a conference for November 25, 2025, at 11:30 a.m. in Courtroom 520 of the White Plains courthouse. The court directed Blanchard’s attorney to notify IBM’s counsel of the conference. The order therefore set a conference on IBM’s objection; the text does not state that the court finally sustained or overruled the objection, quashed the request, or ordered production of the 165 documents.
The court also granted an unopposed videoconference motion to seal exhibits. It directed the Clerk of Court to terminate the pending letter motions identified as Documents 23 and 24. The order was signed by Judge Philip M. Halpern and dated November 17, 2025.
Read the full 6-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.