Zabolotsky v. Equifax
- Gregory Woods
- 1:19-cv-11832
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Zabolotsky v. Experian, Judge Woods explained how Julia Zabolotsky could seek to seal an email sent privately to the court.
Julia Zabolotsky, the plaintiff, must decide whether to submit a motion to seal the December 4 email by December 18, 2020. Experian and the public may be affected because the email may be posted on the publicly accessible docket.
What happened
In Julia Zabolotsky v. Experian, the plaintiff emailed the court privately on December 4, 2020, without copying opposing counsel. The court generally does not accept such communications by email.
The court said it anticipated placing the email on the public docket unless it granted a motion to seal. It allowed the plaintiff to submit a sealing request by December 18, 2020, following the court’s procedures.
Judge Woods emphasized that judicial documents are generally presumed open to the public and that sealing requires an extraordinary circumstance or compelling need. The order did not decide whether the email would be sealed.
The detailed version
- Zabolotsky v. Equifax · No. 1:19-cv-11832
- Gregory Woods
- Dec. 10, 2020
Background
On December 4, 2020, Julia Zabolotsky emailed the court without copying opposing counsel. The court described this as an ex parte communication, meaning a communication made without the other side’s participation. The order states that the court generally does not accept ex parte communications or correspondence sent by email.
Sealing request
The court said it anticipated posting the email on the public docket unless it granted a motion to seal the communication. It directed that any sealing request follow Rule 4(A)(ii) of Judge Woods’s Individual Rules of Practice in Civil Cases. The order also referenced the rule for civil cases involving parties without lawyers, which provides that substantive communications are docketed publicly unless a party asks to file them under seal.
Legal standard and ruling
The court explained that judicial documents carry a general presumption of public access. It said that any motion to seal would be reviewed carefully and skeptically and would need to show an extraordinary circumstance or compelling need. The court stated that it could seal a document only after making a specific finding on the record that sealing was essential.
Judge Gregory H. Woods gave Zabolotsky until December 18, 2020, to submit a motion to seal. The order did not itself grant or deny sealing and did not finally determine whether the email would be placed on the public docket.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.