Zabolotsky v. Equifax
- Gregory Woods
- 1:19-cv-11832
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 6
Zabolotsky v. Experian: Judge Woods denied requests to seal the case and an email, ordering the email posted publicly.
Julia Zabolotsky, whose requests to keep the case and her email sealed were denied, and members of the public, who may access the case materials and email on the docket.
What happened
In Zabolotsky v. Experian, Julia Zabolotsky asked the court to seal the entire case and an email she sent about sealing the case. She also expressed concerns about a press article and information affecting her privacy and reputation.
The court denied both requests. It said court records generally carry a strong presumption of public access and that embarrassment, possible publicity, and possible employment harm were not enough to overcome that presumption.
Judge Gregory H. Woods ordered that Zabolotsky’s email be posted on the public docket, explaining that the email was a court-related document and that the court’s rules required substantive communications to be docketed unless a request to file them under seal was made.
The detailed version
- Zabolotsky v. Equifax · No. 1:19-cv-11832
- Gregory Woods
- Jan. 12, 2021
Background
Julia Zabolotsky, who was representing herself, emailed the court asking that the case be sealed. The court treated the email as a motion because filings by people without lawyers are read liberally. Zabolotsky also complained about a press article that she said was misleading and portrayed her as having mental-health issues. She later filed a motion to seal the email correspondence.
Zabolotsky said sealing was needed to protect her livelihood, professional and personal reputation, and privacy. She referred to financial information filed with her application to proceed without paying filing fees, possible retaliation by the article’s author, and disclosure of her email address and phone number. The opinion states that Zabolotsky noted that she and the last remaining defendant had settled the case.
Legal standard
The court applied the strong presumption that the public may access judicial documents. A judicial document is a filing that is relevant to the court’s work and useful in the judicial process. Under the three-step test described by the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, the court determines whether the material is a judicial document, assesses the strength of the public-access presumption, and balances that presumption against legitimate interests favoring nondisclosure.
A party seeking to seal court material must provide specific facts showing that sealing is essential to protect a higher value and is narrowly tailored to that interest. The court explained that potentially embarrassing information, generalized concerns about bad publicity, and the possibility of future employment harm ordinarily do not overcome the presumption of access.
Court’s analysis
The court concluded that sealing the entire case would involve sealing many judicial documents. The documents remained judicial records even though the case had settled. Because Zabolotsky sought to hide the entire case from public view, the presumption of public access was especially strong.
The court found that Zabolotsky’s stated concerns about financial information, embarrassment, reputation, publicity, and employment were insufficient. It also found that her email was a judicial document because it asked the court for relief. The presumption of access to the email was strong because it was a motion seeking court action. The court noted that the email address and phone number Zabolotsky feared disclosing were already publicly available on the docket.
The court said its decision was based on public access to judicial documents, not on the fact that Zabolotsky had sent the email privately to the court. It also referred to its civil-case rules for people without lawyers, which state that substantive communications will be docketed publicly unless the sender asks to file them under seal.
Disposition
Judge Gregory H. Woods denied Zabolotsky’s motion to seal the case and her motion to seal the email correspondence. The court ordered that the email be posted to the docket. It added that posting the email could help address her concern about the article by placing her disagreement with the article’s description of the proceedings in the public record.
Read the full 6-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.