Nespresso USA, Inc. v. Williams-Sonoma, Inc.
- Loretta Preska
- 1:19-cv-04223
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Nespresso USA v. Williams-Sonoma, Judge Parker approved limited redactions to a hearing transcript about confidential settlement discussions.
Williams-Sonoma, Nespresso, and the public’s access to the hearing transcript were affected. The unredacted transcript remained under seal, while the transcript was to be publicly available with the approved redactions.
What happened
In Nespresso USA, Inc. v. Williams-Sonoma, Inc., Williams-Sonoma asked the court to redact and seal parts of a January 29, 2021 hearing transcript containing information from the parties’ confidential settlement discussions.
Williams-Sonoma argued that the information was protected under Rule 408 of the Federal Rules of Evidence and that the proposed redactions were limited to specific settlement-related material. It also argued that the public’s interest in access to this information was low compared with its interest in keeping the negotiations private.
Judge Katharine H. Parker agreed that the transcript should be redacted, but only to the extent Williams-Sonoma proposed. The court ordered Williams-Sonoma to submit the required redaction form to the court reporter by February 22, 2021, and said the parties could appeal to the court if another redaction order became necessary.
The detailed version
- Nespresso USA, Inc. v. Williams-Sonoma, Inc. · No. 1:19-cv-04223
- Loretta Preska
- Feb. 9, 2021
Background
Williams-Sonoma asked the court to redact portions of the transcript from a January 29, 2021 telephone conference and to keep the unredacted transcript under seal. The requested redactions concerned information about confidential settlement negotiations between the parties in 2020. Williams-Sonoma said it sought only narrowly targeted redactions and filed an unredacted copy of the transcript under seal with the proposed redactions marked.
Court’s analysis
The court accepted the argument that the transcript was a judicial document subject to the presumption of public access. Under the framework described in Lugosch v. Pyramid Co. of Onondaga, the court considered the strength of that presumption and competing interests. The court agreed that the presumption of access was low because the information concerned settlement negotiations and material protected under Rule 408 of the Federal Rules of Evidence. It also found that Williams-Sonoma had significant privacy interests in the settlement information and that the proposed redactions were narrowly tailored.
Ruling
Judge Katharine H. Parker agreed that the transcript at ECF No. 106 should be redacted, but only to the extent proposed by Williams-Sonoma. The court directed Williams-Sonoma to submit the Southern District of New York’s Redaction Request Form to the court reporter by February 22, 2021. The court also stated that the parties could appeal to the court if an additional order granting the redaction request became necessary.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.