Whittaker v. MHR Fund Management LLC

Background

Keith Whittaker filed a petition seeking to vacate or modify an arbitration award. He also asked to begin the case under seal, citing his employment contract. Judge Jed S. Rakoff initially granted that request temporarily, with the filings set to become public unless a party sought continued sealing.

The respondents later asked to provisionally seal the entire proceeding. Alternatively, they asked to seal certain petition exhibits because they allegedly contained highly sensitive and confidential information. Whittaker separately asked to keep the proceeding sealed.

Court’s Analysis

Judge Torres explained that a complaint and its exhibits are judicial documents subject to a presumptive right of public access under the common law and the First Amendment. Continued sealing therefore required specific findings that sealing was necessary to protect more important interests and that the order was narrowly tailored.

The court found that most of the documents the parties wanted to keep sealed did not meet that standard. The court stated that sealing might be justified for some petition exhibits, except exhibits 1 and 51, but required the parties to meet and confer and submit narrower, specific requests for sealing or redaction.

Ruling

Judge Torres denied the respondents’ request to provisionally seal the entire proceeding and denied Whittaker’s request to seal the proceeding. She directed the Clerk to unseal all documents relating to the action except petition exhibits 2–50 and 52–67. Those exhibits were to remain under seal until October 7, 2020. The respondents were ordered to renew their request by October 1, 2020, after the parties narrowed its scope.