Convergen Energy LLC v. Brooks
- Lewis Liman
- 1:20-cv-03746
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Convergen Energy v. Brooks, Judge Liman granted a motion to seal and ordered a redacted refiling of the documents.
Third-party Elmerina Brooks, the plaintiffs, the defendants, and members of the public seeking access to Docket No. 148 were affected. The documents remain accessible to the parties and the court but were removed from public access pending a redacted refiling.
What happened
In Convergen Energy LLC v. Brooks, third-party Elmerina Brooks asked the court to seal documents that had been designated confidential but publicly filed by the plaintiffs.
Brooks’s letter argued that the documents contained private financial information and that the plaintiffs had not followed the protective order’s procedures before filing them publicly. The opinion does not state a separate response from the plaintiffs beyond the positions described in Brooks’s letter.
Judge Lewis J. Liman granted the motion to seal. He directed the Clerk to remove Docket No. 148 from public access while keeping it available to the parties and the court, and ordered the plaintiffs to refile it and its exhibits with the defendants’ redactions.
The detailed version
- Convergen Energy LLC v. Brooks · No. 1:20-cv-03746
- Lewis Liman
- Sept. 8, 2020
Background
Third-party Elmerina Brooks, represented by counsel, sought to seal documents filed as ECF Nos. 148-1 and 148-2. According to Brooks’s letter-motion, she had designated the documents confidential under the court’s protective order, but the plaintiffs publicly filed them on September 4 without advance notice. Brooks requested that the court make redacted versions available for public viewing.
Brooks argued that the documents were not sufficiently connected to the plaintiffs’ motion to dismiss to qualify as judicial documents, or, alternatively, that any presumption of public access was weak. She also argued that her privacy interest in the amount of her loan outweighed any public interest in disclosure. These were arguments made in the letter-motion; the order itself does not provide a separate analysis of them.
Ruling
The court granted the motion to seal. The Clerk of Court was directed to seal Docket No. 148 from public access while maintaining access for the parties and the court. The plaintiffs were ordered to refile Docket No. 148 and its accompanying exhibits with the defendants’ redactions for Exhibits A and B. The order was signed by Judge Lewis J. Liman on September 8, 2020.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.