Chronicle Books, LLC v. Audible, Inc.
- Valerie Caproni
- 1:19-cv-07913
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Chronicle Books v. Audible, Judge Caproni denied sealing the entire settlement agreement and ordered the parties to propose and justify any redactions.
The parties to the settlement—Chronicle Books, LLC, Hachette Book Group, Inc., HarperCollins Publishers LLC, Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC, Penguin Random House LLC, Scholastic Inc., Simon & Schuster, Inc., and Audible, Inc.—and members of the public seeking access to the court record.
What happened
In Chronicle Books, LLC v. Audible, Inc., the parties told the court they had reached an agreement in principle resolving all issues. The court had closed the case administratively and the parties asked it to approve a permanent injunction, retain authority to enforce their settlement, and file the settlement agreement under seal.
The court denied the motion to seal the entire settlement agreement, but allowed the parties to submit proposed redactions. It said the agreement was a court document because the court would retain enforcement authority and the proposed injunction referred to and incorporated the agreement.
Judge Valerie Caproni ordered that, if the parties continued seeking enforcement authority, they must submit the agreement with proposed redactions highlighted and explain each redaction by February 21, 2020. The court indicated that settlement amounts might be appropriate for redaction. Alternatively, the parties could remove references to the settlement agreement and seek a permanent injunction without continued enforcement authority.
The detailed version
- Chronicle Books, LLC v. Audible, Inc. · No. 1:19-cv-07913
- Valerie Caproni
- Feb. 12, 2020
Background
The plaintiffs are Chronicle Books, LLC, Hachette Book Group, Inc., HarperCollins Publishers LLC, Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC, Penguin Random House LLC, Scholastic Inc., and Simon & Schuster, Inc. The defendant is Audible, Inc. The parties notified the court that they had reached an agreement in principle resolving all issues. The court administratively closed the case and gave the parties 30 days to ask it to reopen the case or retain authority to enforce the settlement.
The parties later asked the court to enter a stipulated permanent injunction and retain enforcement jurisdiction over a related settlement agreement. They also asked to file the entire settlement agreement under seal, arguing that it was not a court document subject to the presumption of public access.
Ruling
The court denied the motion to seal the entire settlement agreement, with leave to submit proposed redactions. It held that a settlement agreement over which the court is asked to retain enforcement jurisdiction is a judicial document: a document relevant to the court's work and useful in the court process. The court emphasized that the proposed permanent injunction referred to and incorporated the settlement agreement and stated that the case would be dismissed with prejudice if the proposed order were entered.
The court found that the parties had not shown competing interests strong enough to overcome the public's presumed right of access. It ordered that, if the parties continued to seek enforcement jurisdiction, they must file the settlement agreement under seal with all proposed redactions highlighted by February 21, 2020, along with a letter explaining the justification for each redaction. The court stated that, at that point, it saw no reason to redact anything other than settlement amounts.
The court also gave the parties an alternative: they could submit a revised stipulated permanent injunction removing all references to the related settlement agreement. In that event, the court would enter a permanent injunction without retaining jurisdiction to enforce the agreement. This order addressed sealing and enforcement jurisdiction; the opinion does not decide the underlying claims.
Effect
The entire settlement agreement could not remain sealed merely because the parties wanted the court to retain enforcement authority. The parties had to choose between seeking continued enforcement jurisdiction while justifying proposed redactions and proceeding with an injunction that did not refer to the settlement agreement or retain that jurisdiction.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.