Allen v. Chanel, Inc.
- Loretta Preska
- 1:12-cv-06758
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 11
In Allen v. Chanel, Inc., Judge Preska vacated docket-sealing and takedown orders, unsealed the case, and denied intervention as moot.
Anu Allen, Chanel, Inc., the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Professor Eugene Volokh, and the public and entities seeking access to the case docket and filings.
What happened
In Allen v. Chanel, Inc., Anu Allen had sued Chanel after her employment ended, asserting employment-discrimination claims. The court had previously ruled for Chanel and later sealed the case docket after Allen said public access was harming her employment prospects.
The court reconsidered the sealing and takedown orders after hearing from Allen and interested non-parties, including search engine and legal-information organizations. It concluded that the public’s First Amendment right to access court filings outweighed Allen’s concerns about reputational harm and difficulty finding work.
Judge Preska vacated both earlier orders, directed the Clerk to unseal the case, and denied the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Professor Eugene Volokh’s motion to intervene as moot. The court also directed Allen to send this order to entities that had received the earlier orders.
The detailed version
- Allen v. Chanel, Inc. · No. 1:12-cv-06758
- Loretta Preska
- Dec. 29, 2020
Background
Anu Allen sued her former employer, Chanel, Inc., in 2012, asserting claims including employment discrimination. The court later granted Chanel summary judgment on all of Allen’s claims and ruled for Chanel on its counterclaim for unjust enrichment. The parties then stipulated to dismissal of the remaining claims.
In January 2020, Allen asked the court to seal the case docket. She said that public access to the docket and online discussion of the case were making it difficult for her to find new employment. The court granted that request on March 10, 2020. On August 21, 2020, it also ordered websites and search engines to remove materials concerning the sealed case.
After receiving comments from non-parties, including DuckDuckGo and Free Law Project, the court reconsidered both orders. The Electronic Frontier Foundation and Professor Eugene Volokh also moved to intervene, meaning they asked to participate formally in the case to address access to the court’s records.
Court’s Analysis
The court explained that the First Amendment creates a strong presumption that the public may access pleadings, docket sheets, and other judicial documents. Materials filed in connection with summary judgment motions receive especially strong protection. A party seeking to seal such materials must provide specific findings showing that sealing is necessary to protect interests that outweigh public access, and the sealing must be narrowly tailored.
The court acknowledged that Allen’s concerns about employment, livelihood, wellbeing, and reputational harm were significant. But it held that general concerns about reputational harm or possible effects on employment were not enough to overcome the public’s right of access. The court also emphasized that the docket and filings had been public for years, stating that information already made public remains public. Because the court could not make the required findings supporting sealing, it concluded that sealing the entire docket was improper.
Because the August 21 takedown order was based on the March 10 sealing order, the court vacated that order as well. The court noted that Allen could seek other remedies for alleged attorney misconduct, but it did not rule on whether she had such a claim.
Rulings
The court VACATED the March 10, 2020 order sealing the docket and VACATED the August 21, 2020 takedown order. It DENIED as moot the motion to intervene filed for the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Professor Eugene Volokh because the court had already considered the non-parties’ comments and had removed the sealing and takedown orders.
The Clerk was directed to unseal the case, including specified docket entries. Allen was directed to send a copy of the order to search engines, news outlets, and other domains to which she had sent copies of the earlier orders. Judge Loretta A. Preska signed the order.
Read the full 11-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.