Lowell v. Lyft, Inc.
- Philip Halpern
- 7:17-cv-06251
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 5
In Lowell v. Lyft, Judge Halpern granted permission to keep limited internal ride data under seal in proposed trial findings.
Lyft, the plaintiffs, and members of the public seeking access to the parties’ proposed findings are affected. The specified internal Standard-mode ride data will remain in the unredacted filing under seal, while the redacted version remains public.
What happened
In Lowell, et al. v. Lyft, Inc., Lyft asked to keep certain figures from the parties’ proposed findings of fact and legal conclusions confidential. The figures concerned Lyft’s internal data for its regular service, called “Standard mode,” rather than its wheelchair-accessible “Access mode” service.
The court granted the application. A redacted version of the joint proposed findings will remain public, while the unredacted version will remain under seal. The court also scheduled a telephone conference about the parties’ pretrial submissions.
Judge Philip M. Halpern entered the order on November 4, 2022. The ruling addressed only public filing and confidentiality of limited information; the opinion did not decide the underlying claims.
The detailed version
- Lowell v. Lyft, Inc. · No. 7:17-cv-06251
- Philip Halpern
- Nov. 4, 2022
Background
Lyft asked the court for permission to file portions of the parties’ joint proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law under seal. The request concerned specific figures from Lyft’s internal ride data that Lyft had designated highly confidential under the parties’ protective order. Lyft stated that it had designated figures in 40 of the plaintiffs’ 520 proposed findings and had not designated material in its own 42 proposed findings.
Lyft argued that the figures concerned its “Standard mode” service, not the wheelchair-accessible “Access mode” service that was the subject of the plaintiffs’ claims. Lyft further argued that the figures were irrelevant to the issues the court would decide, would not materially help the public understand the proceeding, and had continuing competitive value because they reflected recent internal ride data through January 2021.
Court’s ruling
The court granted the application. The redacted document filed on the public docket as Document 317 will remain the publicly filed version of the parties’ joint proposed findings, and the unredacted version filed as Document 318 will remain under seal. The order also scheduled a telephone conference for November 7, 2022, to discuss the parties’ pretrial submissions.
The ruling was limited to the handling of the identified confidential information. It did not decide the merits of the plaintiffs’ claims or Lyft’s defenses.
Read the full 5-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.