Franchitti v. Cognizant Technology Solutions Corporation
- Jesse Furman
- 1:21-cv-02174
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Franchitti v. Cognizant, Judge Furman granted defendants’ request to keep the unredacted complaint sealed and required future redaction of conciliation information.
Jean-Claude Franchitti and the Cognizant defendants, particularly when filing documents that contain information about the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s confidential conciliation process.
What happened
In Franchitti v. Cognizant Technology Solutions Corporation, the defendants asked the court to keep the plaintiff’s unredacted complaint sealed because it discussed confidential discussions with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Jean-Claude Franchitti alleged that Cognizant terminated him in July 2016 and that he later pursued a discrimination charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The parties took part in confidential settlement discussions through that agency, but those discussions did not resolve the matter.
Judge Jesse M. Furman granted the defendants’ request to keep the unredacted complaint sealed. He also said information about the confidential discussions must be redacted from future public filings, and required the parties to seek permission before filing those documents in redacted form.
The detailed version
- Franchitti v. Cognizant Technology Solutions Corporation · No. 1:21-cv-02174
- Jesse Furman
- May 5, 2021
Background
The defendants, Cognizant Technology Solutions Corporation and Cognizant Technology Solutions U.S. Corporation, asked the court to continue sealing the plaintiff’s unredacted complaint. They also asked the court to require redactions in future public filings containing allegations or information about the confidential conciliation process conducted by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
The opinion states that Jean-Claude Franchitti was formerly employed by Cognizant and was terminated in July 2016. After his termination, he filed a discrimination charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Franchitti and Cognizant later participated in the agency’s confidential conciliation process, which was unsuccessful. The agency issued Franchitti a notice of his right to sue on October 26, 2020.
The request to seal
The defendants argued that federal law protects information exchanged during the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s conciliation process from public disclosure without the written consent of the participants. They identified protected material as including settlement drafts, proposals, counterproposals, notes, and other information exchanged during the process. The defendants stated that they had not consented to disclosure.
The defendants also referred to an earlier proceeding involving Franchitti and Cognizant in which the court required documents and allegations concerning specific conciliation actions to be filed under seal. A footnote in the defendants’ submission asserted that Franchitti’s complaint attempted to base a retaliation claim on the conciliation process and stated that the unsuccessful effort to resolve his charge did not support such a claim. The order did not separately rule on that asserted retaliation issue.
Ruling
Judge Jesse M. Furman granted the defendants’ request to keep the unredacted complaint sealed. The court agreed that information concerning the conciliation process should be redacted from future filings. To ensure that redactions were proper and narrowly tailored, the court required the parties to seek permission to file any such submission in redacted form under Paragraph 7 of the judge’s Individual Rules and Practices. The clerk was directed to terminate ECF No. 32.
The order addressed sealing and redaction of confidential conciliation information. It did not state a ruling on the underlying discrimination claims.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.