Fezzani v. Bear, Stearns & Co.
- 1:99-cv-00793
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 17
In Fezzani v. Bear, Stearns & Co., the court entered a confidentiality order governing discovery and protecting designated information.
The plaintiffs, the Dweck Defendants, the Wolfson Defendants, non-parties producing discovery, and people who receive protected material in the litigation are affected by the order’s confidentiality, disclosure, challenge, handling, filing, return, and destruction requirements.
What happened
In Mohamed Fezzani, et al. v. Bear, Stearns & Company, Inc., et al., the parties asked the court to approve an agreement governing confidential information exchanged during discovery. The order states that the parties wanted to facilitate discovery while protecting confidential information and preserving applicable privileges.
The court entered the confidentiality order under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(c). It defines protected information, limits its use and disclosure, establishes procedures for challenging confidentiality designations, addresses accidentally disclosed privileged material, restricts public filing of protected material, and requires its return or destruction after the case ends.
The order did not decide the parties’ underlying claims. The court found that good cause existed to enter the stipulated order; the opinion text does not clearly identify the judge’s full name.
The detailed version
- Fezzani v. Bear, Stearns & Co. · No. 1:99-cv-00793
- June 8, 2022
Background
The plaintiffs, the Dweck Defendants, and the Wolfson Defendants stipulated to an order governing confidential information produced during discovery. The order states that discovery could involve confidential business, financial, employee, customer, personal, proprietary, or legally protected information. The parties also sought to prevent inadvertent disclosure from waiving attorney-client privilege, work-product protection, or another applicable protection.
The order notes that some defendants previously identified as Wolfson Defendants had been dismissed, and that counsel had learned that Abraham Wolfson had died earlier in the year. It does not resolve any claim arising from those matters.
Order’s Terms
The court entered the stipulated confidentiality order under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(c), finding that good cause existed. The order defines “CONFIDENTIAL” material and provides that protections cover designated documents, testimony, information copied or extracted from protected material, summaries, compilations, and communications that reveal protected information. Information already public, or lawfully known from a nonconfidential source, is excluded.
The order establishes procedures for marking documents, electronic materials, tangible items, deposition testimony, and non-party materials as confidential. A party may challenge a designation at any time before the action ends, generally after written notice and a meet-and-confer process. If the dispute is not resolved, the challenging party may seek court intervention, while the designating party bears the burden of persuasion.
Protected material may generally be used only to prosecute, defend, or attempt to settle this litigation or related litigation between the parties. Disclosure is limited to specified people, including parties, involved counsel and their staff, necessary experts who sign an agreement to be bound, the court and its personnel, certain consultants, document custodians, stenographers, and qualifying non-party witnesses and their attorneys.
The order also governs protected material subpoenaed or requested in another proceeding, protected material obtained from non-parties, and unauthorized disclosures. If privileged or otherwise protected material is inadvertently produced, the producing party may give notice, after which the receiving party must return, sequester, or destroy the material and refrain from using or disclosing it while the claim is resolved. The order states that inadvertent disclosure by itself does not waive the claimed privilege or protection under Federal Rule of Evidence 502(d).
Protected material may not be filed publicly without permission from the designating party or a court order. After the case’s final disposition, covered material generally must be returned or destroyed within 120 days, subject to stated exceptions for attorney work product and certain litigation files. The confidentiality obligations continue after the litigation ends unless the designating party agrees otherwise in writing or a court orders otherwise.
Disposition and Significance
The court entered the stipulated confidentiality order. This was a discovery and confidentiality ruling, not a decision on the parties’ underlying claims or defenses. The opinion text’s signature does not clearly provide the judge’s full name.
Read the full 17-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.