A.S. v. The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, Inc.
- John Cronan
- 1:19-cv-11566
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In A.S. v. The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations, Judge Cronan denied the parties’ request to redact settlement amounts.
The parties’ settlement amounts remain publicly accessible in the infant compromise order, and the parties’ joint request to redact them was denied.
What happened
In A.S. v. The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, Inc., the court had already approved the parties’ settlement and dismissed the case. The parties then jointly asked the court to redact the settlement amounts from the order approving a settlement involving an infant, citing a confidentiality provision.
The court rejected that request because the parties did not show that their privacy interests outweighed the public’s right to access the information. The court also said the case the parties cited did not support their argument and noted that related settlement amounts had been filed publicly.
Judge Cronan denied the request to seal the settlement amounts and directed the Clerk of Court to close the letter motion at Docket Number 85.
The detailed version
- A.S. v. The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, Inc. · No. 1:19-cv-11566
- John Cronan
- June 3, 2022
Background
On June 2, 2022, the Court entered an order approving the parties’ settlement agreement involving an infant and dismissing the action. The parties later filed a joint letter asking the Court to modify that order by redacting the settlement amounts. They argued that redaction was appropriate because their settlement agreement contained a confidentiality provision.
The Court’s Analysis
The Court found that the parties had not shown that sealing the settlement amounts was warranted. It explained that the decision the parties cited concerned requests to redact information in a first amended class-action complaint and did not support their position. The Court also noted that the parties in that earlier matter had publicly filed the final settlement amounts.
The Court further concluded that the parties had not provided a basis for finding that their privacy interests in keeping the settlement amounts confidential outweighed the public’s right to access the information. The Court considered it significant that the parties did not ask to redact the same information from the proposed infant compromise order and the settlement agreement, both of which were publicly filed.
Ruling
Judge John P. Cronan denied the parties’ request to seal the settlement amounts in the infant compromise order. The Court directed the Clerk of Court to close the letter motion pending at Docket Number 85.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.