Sanderson v. Leg Apparel LLC
- Gregory Woods
- 1:19-cv-08423
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 9
In Aftern Sanderson v. Leg Apparel LLC, Judge Woods approved a stipulated protective order governing confidential discovery.
The parties, their officers, agents, employees, attorneys, specified litigation participants, and anyone with actual notice of the protective order who receives or handles designated confidential discovery material.
What happened
Aftern Sanderson v. Leg Apparel LLC involved the parties’ request for rules protecting nonpublic and competitively sensitive information exchanged during discovery. The order applied to the parties and other people who received notice of it.
The order allowed parties to label certain financial, ownership, business, personal, and other court-approved information as confidential. It limited disclosure, required signed nondisclosure agreements for some recipients, and required confidential court filings to include public redacted copies and separate requests to file unredacted versions under seal.
Judge Gregory H. Woods found good cause and approved the stipulated confidentiality agreement and protective order on December 3, 2020. The order did not decide the underlying claims or the admissibility of evidence.
The detailed version
- Sanderson v. Leg Apparel LLC · No. 1:19-cv-08423
- Gregory Woods
- Dec. 3, 2020
Background
The parties jointly requested a protective order under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(c). They sought protection for nonpublic and competitively sensitive information that might be disclosed during discovery. The court found good cause for an appropriately tailored order governing the pretrial phase of the action.
What the Order Requires
The order permits a producing party to designate as confidential only material that it reasonably and in good faith believes includes previously undisclosed financial information, information about ownership or control of a nonpublic company, business or marketing plans, product-development information, or personal or intimate information. The court may also give other information confidential status later.
People subject to the order may not disclose designated confidential discovery material except to listed recipients, including the parties, certain counsel and litigation vendors, mediators or arbitrators, specified people identified in documents, potential witnesses, experts, stenographers, and the court. Certain witnesses, experts, mediators, and arbitrators must first sign a nondisclosure agreement. Confidential material may be used only for prosecuting or defending this action and related appeals.
The order provides procedures for correcting a missed confidentiality designation, objecting to a designation, and requesting additional limits such as an attorneys’-eyes-only restriction. It also permits disclosure in response to a subpoena or other compulsory legal process, subject to notice to the producing party.
Court Filings and End of the Case
A party filing confidential discovery material must publicly file a redacted version and separately seek permission to file an unredacted version under seal. The order states that the court has not decided whether any designated material is actually confidential and may refuse to seal material introduced at trial. It also requires most recipients, within 60 days after final disposition including appeals, to return or destroy the confidential material and certify that they kept no copies, subject to a limited archival-copy exception for attorneys retained for the action.
Ruling
Judge Gregory H. Woods ordered the parties and other persons subject to the order to follow its terms, enforceable through contempt. The order preserved objections to discovery, privilege claims, and challenges to evidence admissibility; it did not resolve the merits of the lawsuit.
Read the full 9-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.