Go New York Tours, Inc. v. Tour Central Park Inc.
- Valerie Caproni
- 1:19-cv-09803
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 8
In Go New York Tours v. Tour Central Park, Judge Caproni entered a protective order governing confidential discovery.
Go New York Tours, Inc., Tour Central Park Inc., and other people subject to the order, including their representatives, agents, experts, consultants, certain vendors, witnesses, mediators or arbitrators, stenographers, and court personnel who receive or handle designated confidential discovery material.
What happened
Go New York Tours, Inc. v. Tour Central Park Inc. concerns the parties’ request for rules protecting nonpublic and competitively sensitive information exchanged during discovery.
The court’s order allows certain financial, ownership, business, marketing, personal, and other court-approved information to be marked confidential. It limits disclosure and use of that information, sets procedures for filing confidential material, and provides rules for objections, subpoenas, and returning or destroying materials after the case ends.
Judge Valerie E. Caproni found good cause and entered the stipulated confidentiality agreement and protective order on April 1, 2020. The order applies to the parties and other people subject to it, and the court retained authority to enforce it and punish contempt.
The detailed version
- Go New York Tours, Inc. v. Tour Central Park Inc. · No. 1:19-cv-09803
- Valerie Caproni
- Apr. 1, 2020
Background
Go New York Tours, Inc. and Tour Central Park Inc., through counsel, jointly requested a protective order under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(c). They sought protection for nonpublic and competitively sensitive information that might be disclosed during discovery. The court stated that it found good cause for an appropriately tailored confidentiality order governing the pretrial phase of the case.
Order
The court entered the stipulated confidentiality agreement and protective order. The order permits a producing party to designate as confidential only material that it reasonably and in good faith believes includes certain previously undisclosed financial information; information about ownership or control of a nonpublic company; business, product-development, or marketing plans; personal or intimate information; or another category that the court later gives confidential status.
The order establishes procedures for marking confidential material and for designating deposition testimony and exhibits. It identifies people who may receive confidential discovery material, including the parties, insurers and their counsel, litigation counsel and their staff, vendors, mediators or arbitrators, certain persons identified in documents, potential witnesses, experts, stenographers, and the court. Some recipients must first receive the order and sign a nondisclosure agreement.
Use, filing, and enforcement
Recipients may use confidential discovery material only to prosecute or defend this case and related appeals, not for business, commercial, competitive, or other litigation purposes. The order also addresses compelled disclosure, precautions against unauthorized or accidental disclosure, challenges to confidentiality designations, and requests for additional limits such as attorneys’ eyes only treatment.
A party filing confidential material must publicly file a redacted copy and file the unredacted version under seal, along with the submissions required by the court’s individual practices. The court retained discretion over whether to keep material confidential when it is submitted in connection with a motion or proceeding, and warned that material introduced at trial is unlikely to remain sealed.
Within 60 days after final disposition, including appeals, recipients must return or, with the producing party’s permission, destroy confidential material and certify that they retained no copies, subject to the order’s provision allowing certain litigation attorneys to keep archival copies. The order survives the end of the litigation, and the court retained jurisdiction to enforce its obligations and impose contempt sanctions.
Disposition
Judge Valerie E. Caproni entered the stipulated protective order. This opinion text does not decide the underlying claims in the case.
Read the full 8-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.