Kulick v. Gamma Real Estate LLC
- Vyskocil
- 1:20-cv-03582
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Kulick v. Gamma Real Estate LLC, Judge Vyskocil denied defendants’ motion to seal contracts and required public filings with limited redactions.
The defendants, who had to publicly file the contracts with limited redactions; Richard Kulick, whose opposition to sealing was granted; and non-party investors, partners, and tenants, whose identities could be protected through redactions.
What happened
In Kulick v. Gamma Real Estate LLC, the defendants asked to keep certain contracts secret while asking the court to dismiss several of Richard Kulick’s claims. Kulick opposed sealing the contracts but agreed that the names of investors who were not parties could be redacted.
The court refused to seal the contracts because they were tied to a motion that could entirely resolve the claims, making the public’s right to inspect them especially strong. The court said that protecting the identities of non-party investors, partners, and tenants could be handled through redactions instead.
Judge Vyskocil denied the motion to seal. She ordered the defendants to file public versions of the documents by September 4, 2020, allowed only specified redactions, and required the parties to meet and confer and report any remaining disagreement by August 28, 2020.
The detailed version
- Kulick v. Gamma Real Estate LLC · No. 1:20-cv-03582
- Vyskocil
- Aug. 24, 2020
Background
The defendants requested permission to file under seal certain contracts related to their motion to dismiss several of Richard Kulick’s claims. Kulick opposed the request but consented to redacting the names of investors who were not parties to the case.
Court’s reasoning
The court explained that the defendants had represented that the contracts would entirely foreclose the claims addressed by their motion to dismiss. Because the contracts were therefore connected to a potentially dispositive motion, the court applied a presumption of public access to the documents. The court found that the alleged harm from disclosure largely involved revealing the identities of investors and partners and providing insight into confidential business transactions. It concluded that redaction could address that harm and that sealing the contracts was not warranted.
Order
The court denied the defendants’ motion to seal the contracts. It ordered the defendants to file publicly accessible versions of all documents previously submitted under seal by September 4, 2020. The defendants could redact only: (1) the names of non-party investors, partners, and tenants; and (2) other specific information that would allow a third party, without further inquiry, to determine the identity of such a non-party investor, partner, or tenant.
The court also ordered the parties to meet and confer about proposed redactions. If they disagreed, they were required to submit a joint letter by August 28, 2020, describing the disagreement and their efforts to resolve it. The letter had to include a list of disputed information with page and section citations. That list could be filed under seal, but the joint letter could be redacted only as necessary to protect non-parties’ identities. This order addressed sealing and access to the contracts; the opinion does not state the outcome of the underlying motion to dismiss.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.