Rodenburg v. Chrismatic Studios Corp.
- Valerie Caproni
- 1:21-cv-07308
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 8
In Rodenburg v. Chrismatic Studios Corp., Judge Caproni issued a protective order governing confidential discovery and its use in the case.
The parties, their corporate parents, successors and assigns, representatives, agents, experts, consultants, counsel, insurers, litigation-support providers, third parties providing discovery, witnesses and other persons who receive or have notice of the confidential discovery material are bound by the order’s applicable restrictions.
What happened
Rodenburg v. Chrismatic Studios Corp. involved the parties’ request for a protective order covering nonpublic and competitively sensitive information that might be exchanged during discovery. The parties agreed to the proposed terms through their lawyers.
The order limits disclosure of materials labeled confidential and allows their use only to prosecute or defend this case and related appeals. It covers specified financial, ownership, business, personal, and intimate information, and sets procedures for marking, challenging, filing, and handling those materials.
The court found good cause for a tailored confidentiality order and issued it. Judge Caproni also required recipients to protect the information, return or destroy it after the case ends subject to limited archival retention, and remain subject to the order after the litigation terminates.
The detailed version
- Rodenburg v. Chrismatic Studios Corp. · No. 1:21-cv-07308
- Valerie Caproni
- Jan. 4, 2022
Background
Patsy Rodenburg sued Chrismatic Studios Corp. doing business as Michael Howard Confidentiality Studios and Gabrielle Berberich. The parties, through counsel, jointly requested a protective order under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(c) for nonpublic and competitively sensitive information that could be disclosed during discovery. The court found good cause for issuing an appropriately tailored order for the pretrial phase of the case.
Protective-Order Terms
The order restricts disclosure of discovery material designated as “Confidential.” A producing party may make that designation only when it reasonably and in good faith believes the material contains previously undisclosed financial information, information about ownership or control of a nonpublic company, business or marketing plans, personal or intimate information, or another category the court later protects.
Confidential material may be disclosed only to specified recipients, including the parties and their insurers, counsel and litigation-support personnel, outside vendors working on the case, certain mediators or arbitrators, document authors and addressees, potential witnesses, experts and specialized advisers, deposition stenographers, and the court. Witnesses, experts, mediators, and arbitrators must first sign a nondisclosure agreement in the required form.
The order permits parties to challenge confidentiality designations before trial. It also requires public redacted filings and sealed unredacted filings when confidential material is submitted to the court. The court retained discretion over whether to keep material confidential in connection with motions or other proceedings and stated that it was unlikely to seal material introduced as evidence at trial.
The order does not waive objections to discovery, privileges, or objections to admissibility. It addresses inadvertently disclosed attorney-client privileged or attorney-work-product material: the receiving party generally must return or destroy the material within five business days, while retaining the right to ask the court to compel production. The party asserting privilege retains the burden of establishing that the material is protected.
Disposition
The court issued the stipulated protective order. Confidential discovery may be used only for prosecuting or defending this action and related appeals, not for business, commercial, competitive, or unrelated litigation purposes. Within 60 days after final disposition, including appeals, recipients must return or destroy the confidential material and certify that they retained no copies, subject to the order’s limited archival-copy provision for attorneys. The order survives termination of the litigation, and the court retained jurisdiction to enforce it and impose contempt sanctions. Judge Valerie E. Caproni signed the order on January 4, 2022.
Read the full 8-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.