Moody v. Empire Hotel Development, Inc.

Background

The plaintiffs are Amanda Moody, Kareena R. Guarneri, DaJuan Morrow, William Patterson, Natalia Martina Robinson, and De'Jahn. The defendants are Empire Hotel Development, Inc. doing business as Hyatt Place Poughkeepsie, Hyatt Corporation, Hyatt Place Franchising, LLC, Hyatt Hotels Corp., and Erfan Khan. The parties, through their lawyers, jointly requested a protective order under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(c) to protect nonpublic and competitively sensitive information that might be exchanged during discovery.

Order

The court found good cause for an appropriately limited confidentiality order covering the pretrial phase of the case. The order allows a producing party to mark material confidential when it reasonably and in good faith believes the material includes previously undisclosed financial information, ownership or control information about a nonpublic company, business or marketing plans, personal or intimate information, or another category the court later protects.

People subject to the order generally may not disclose confidential discovery material except to specified recipients. Those recipients include the parties and certain insurers, counsel and their support staff, vendors assisting with the case, mediators or arbitrators, document authors and addressees, possible witnesses, experts or specialized advisers, deposition transcription personnel, and the court. Witnesses, experts, mediators, and arbitrators must first receive the order and sign a nondisclosure agreement.

Sealing and confidentiality disputes

The order does not automatically require the court to keep material sealed. A party filing confidential material must publicly file a redacted version and file the unredacted version under seal, along with a letter brief and supporting declaration explaining why continued sealing is justified. The court retains discretion over whether to give confidential treatment to material submitted in connection with a motion or other proceeding and states that it is unlikely to seal material introduced as evidence at trial.

A party may object to a confidentiality designation or request stricter disclosure limits, such as attorneys' eyes only. If the parties cannot promptly resolve the dispute, they must bring it to the court under the judge's individual practices.

Privilege and use of information

The order provides that an inadvertent disclosure of material protected by attorney-client privilege or attorney work-product protection does not waive that protection. After receiving notice of an inadvertent disclosure, the receiving party must return or destroy the material within five business days and provide a certification. The disclosing party must then provide a privilege log, and the receiving party may ask the court to order production. The disclosing party retains the burden of showing that the material is privileged or protected.

Confidential discovery material may be used only to prosecute or defend this case and any appeals, not for business, competitive, commercial, or other litigation purposes. Within 60 days after final disposition, including appeals, recipients must return or destroy the material and certify that they have not kept copies or other reproductions, subject to a limited archival-copy exception for attorneys specifically retained for the case.

Disposition

The court entered the stipulated protective order. It remains binding after the case ends, and the court retains jurisdiction over people subject to the order to enforce its obligations or impose contempt sanctions. The order does not decide whether any discovery request is proper, waive any privilege, or determine whether evidence will be admissible at trial.