Wiener v. Axa Equitable Life Ins Co
- Ona Wang
- 1:16-cv-04019
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Wiener v. AXA Equitable Life Insurance Company, Magistrate Judge Wang ordered a narrower review of sealing requests to protect medical information.
The parties, the court, and public access to the documents covered by the sealing request.
What happened
In Malcolm H. Wiener v. AXA Equitable Life Insurance Company et al., the court temporarily restricted access to several filed documents while considering the parties’ agreed request to seal them.
The court said that sealing all of the documents was not shown to be appropriate or necessary, but agreed that some information about Wiener’s medical history should remain confidential. It directed the parties to discuss and submit a new request identifying specific information to seal or redact.
Magistrate Judge Ona T. Wang also set procedures for resolving disagreements about proposed redactions and directed the Clerk to close ECF 193.
The detailed version
- Wiener v. Axa Equitable Life Ins Co · No. 1:16-cv-04019
- Ona Wang
- July 24, 2020
Background
The court had restricted access to ECF Nos. 187, 188, 190, and 192-1 through 192-22 because the parties had jointly moved to seal those materials. The order does not identify the contents of each filing, but it states that the materials included information relating to Plaintiff’s medical history.
Court’s analysis
After reviewing the filings, the court was not convinced that sealing the documents in their entirety was appropriate or necessary. It agreed, however, that certain medical-history information should remain confidential. The court referred to the need for a particularized review, meaning a document-by-document and information-specific assessment of what should be sealed or redacted.
Order
The parties were directed to meet and confer and file a new letter motion to seal or redact under Judge Wang’s Individual Practices, Section IV. If they could not agree on the scope of the redactions, each side had to email chambers proposed redactions for every disputed document, highlighting the contested words, phrases, or paragraphs. The parties were also instructed to use three colors to show agreed redactions, redactions sought by Plaintiff without Defendants’ consent, and redactions sought by Defendants without Plaintiff’s consent. The contested proposed redactions were not to be filed on the electronic docket; the parties also had to provide a color courtesy copy to the court and share the submission costs. The Clerk was directed to close ECF 193.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.