Wood v. Mutual Redevelopment Houses, Inc.
- Analisa Torres
- 1:18-cv-00726
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Wood v. Mutual Redevelopment Houses, Judge Torres denied a private-review filing request and records search, granted transcript redactions, and denied unsealing.
Tzvee Wood and Andrea Malester were affected by the rulings on their filing, redaction, and records requests. The defendants were affected by the denial of their request to unseal records.
What happened
In Wood v. Mutual Redevelopment Houses, Tzvee Wood and Andrea Malester asked the court to review a letter privately, redact parts of a conference transcript, and identify records from conferences in three related cases.
The court denied the request to file the letter privately because the opposing side had not received enough information to object meaningfully. It granted the request to redact transcript portions concerning one plaintiff’s claimed disability and denied the defendants’ request to unseal records covered by an earlier sealing order. It also denied the request for a search identifying conference records.
Judge Torres left the earlier sealing order in place, declined to second-guess Judge Freeman’s decision, and said searching for all conference records would improperly use court resources. The court allowed the plaintiffs to submit a new letter explaining the basis for a private filing by May 16, 2022, with any opposition due by May 20, 2022.
The detailed version
- Wood v. Mutual Redevelopment Houses, Inc. · No. 1:18-cv-00726
- Analisa Torres
- May 5, 2022
Background
The court reviewed submissions in three captioned cases involving Tzvee Wood and Andrea Malester as plaintiffs and Mutual Redevelopment Houses, Inc., along with other defendants. The order addressed several requests concerning court filings, a transcript, sealed records, and records of conferences.
Rulings on the Requests
The court denied the plaintiffs’ request in No. 14 Civ. 7535 to file a letter for private judicial review. The court treated the request as an attempt to communicate with it without giving the opposing party enough information to object meaningfully. The court stated that, if the plaintiffs still wanted to submit such a letter, they had to file a letter explaining the basis for the request by May 16, 2022. Any opposition from the defendants was due by May 20, 2022.
The plaintiffs also requested two redactions to the transcript of a February 18, 2021 conference before Judge Debra Freeman. The defendants opposed the redactions and asked the court to unseal records covered by Judge Freeman’s February 18, 2021 order. The court found that the sealing order remained in effect because it said the records would remain sealed pending a later court order. Because the requested transcript portions concerned a disability claimed by one plaintiff and fell within that order’s scope, the court granted the plaintiffs’ request for redactions and denied the defendants’ request to unseal all records covered by the order.
Finally, the plaintiffs asked the court to identify records related to all conferences held in the three cases. The court denied that request, stating that conducting the search would be an inappropriate use of court resources.
Disposition
Judge Torres denied the private-review filing request, granted the transcript-redaction request, denied the request to unseal the sealed records, and denied the request to identify conference records. The order did not decide the underlying claims in the cases.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.