Rosco, Inc. v. Safety Vision, LLC
- Jesse Furman
- 1:19-cv-08933
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 5
In Rosco v. Safety Vision, Judge Furman temporarily granted Safety Vision’s broader sealing request for deposition materials and deferred final redaction decisions.
Rosco, Inc. and Safety Vision, LLC, whose deposition materials were temporarily kept subject to redaction; the order also affected public access to those court-filed materials.
What happened
In Rosco, Inc. v. Safety Vision, LLC, the parties asked the court to approve redactions to deposition transcripts filed in connection with a dispute about the proper venue for the case. They disagreed about how much information should remain confidential.
Rosco agreed to limited redactions involving Safety Vision’s database name, credit-card reimbursements, and the ownership structure of certain Latin American entities. Safety Vision sought broader redactions covering customer information, employee and executive identities, organizational structure, Latin American operations, and business strategies.
Judge Jesse Furman temporarily granted the motion to seal under Safety Vision’s broader proposal. He deferred the final decision about which material should remain redacted until ruling on the underlying motion, and directed the parties to file redacted and highlighted unredacted versions of the documents.
The detailed version
- Rosco, Inc. v. Safety Vision, LLC · No. 1:19-cv-08933
- Jesse Furman
- Aug. 24, 2020
Background
The parties jointly submitted a letter asking the court to approve redactions to deposition transcripts of Brandon Blood and Bruce Smith. The transcripts had been filed under seal under a stipulated protective order. The parties had narrowed their disagreement but still differed over the scope of the proposed redactions.
Rosco argued that the deposition testimony did not qualify as confidential under the protective order or under the standards governing sealed court documents. Rosco nevertheless agreed that limited redactions could cover the name of Safety Vision’s database, Blood’s credit-card reimbursements, and the ownership structure of certain Latin American entities. Rosco opposed broader redactions, including redactions of customer names, employee names and titles, hiring strategy, sales strategy, and information about proprietary software.
Safety Vision sought additional protection for the identities of customers and potential customers not listed on its website; the identities and roles of certain executives and vendors; its organizational and ownership structure; its Latin American operations and management; and its sales, hiring, and software strategies. Safety Vision argued that disclosure could harm its ability to compete with Rosco and potentially others in the industry. It also asked the court to defer a final decision about what should remain sealed until the parties filed their briefs on the underlying motion.
Ruling
The court temporarily granted the motion to seal under Safety Vision’s broader proposal. The court stated that it would decide whether, and to what extent, the documents should remain redacted when deciding the underlying motion. The parties were instructed, if they had not already done so, to file redacted and highlighted unredacted versions of the documents on the electronic filing system in accordance with the court’s individual rules and practices. The Clerk of Court was directed to terminate ECF No. 68.
Judge Jesse Furman’s order did not make a final determination about which specific portions of the deposition transcripts were entitled to continued redaction.
Read the full 5-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.