Benn v. Morrison
- Lorna Schofield
- 1:18-cv-00722
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Benn v. Morrison, Judge Schofield denied without prejudice defendants’ request to seal video exhibits, allowing them to renew it.
The defendants’ request to seal two video-recorded witness statements was denied without prejudice, so they could file the exhibits under seal and renew the application. The order did not resolve the plaintiff’s underlying claims.
What happened
In Benn v. Morrison, defendants asked to file two video-recorded witness statements under seal as evidence for their summary-judgment motion.
The statements had been available for viewing under an attorneys’-eyes-only restriction, and an earlier order allowed a party to seek permission to cite them under seal.
Judge Lorna G. Schofield denied the application without prejudice because it lacked required filing information, did not include the proposed sealed documents, and did not give specific reasons for sealing. Defendants were told to file the exhibits under seal with their summary-judgment motion and renew the request.
The detailed version
- Benn v. Morrison · No. 1:18-cv-00722
- Lorna Schofield
- Sept. 21, 2020
Background
Defendants asked for permission to file two video-recorded statements made by a witness to the incident involved in the plaintiff’s arrest under seal. The statements had been the subject of earlier discovery-related proceedings before Magistrate Judge Wang. Judge Wang directed the New York County District Attorney’s Office to make the statements available for viewing by the parties and designated them for attorneys’-eyes-only access. She also ruled that a party seeking to rely on the videos in a future motion could apply to file them under seal.
Court’s ruling
Judge Schofield denied the application without prejudice to renewal. The application did not comply with the court’s Individual Rule I.D. because it did not include an appendix identifying the attorneys of record who should have access to the sealed materials, and the proposed sealed documents were not filed under seal at the same time as the application. The court also explained that a sealing request must provide specific reasons tied to the information that the party seeks to protect. Defendants were directed to file the proposed exhibits under seal when submitting their summary-judgment motion and to renew the application then.
Effect of the order
The order resolved only the request to seal the video exhibits. It did not decide the underlying claims, the summary-judgment motion, or whether the videos would ultimately be admitted or relied upon.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.