41-45 Property Owner, LLC v. CDM1, LLC
- Lorna Schofield
- 1:22-cv-08634
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In 41-45 Property Owner v. CDM1, Judge Schofield denied CDM1’s motion to seal the Option Agreement and ordered the document unsealed.
The parties and members of the public seeking access to the court record, because the Option Agreement was ordered unsealed.
What happened
In 41-45 Property Owner, LLC v. CDM1, LLC, the defendant asked the court to keep an Option Agreement between the parties from public view because it contained a confidentiality provision.
The plaintiff later filed the same agreement publicly as an exhibit to its complaint. The defendant said it took no position on whether the agreement should be sealed. The court therefore found that neither party had challenged the public’s usual right to access court records.
Judge Lorna G. Schofield denied the motion to seal, directed the clerk to unseal the document, and closed the sealing motion.
The detailed version
- 41-45 Property Owner, LLC v. CDM1, LLC · No. 1:22-cv-08634
- Lorna Schofield
- Nov. 15, 2022
Background
The dispute concerned an Option Agreement that the parties executed on October 6, 2017. The plaintiff initially filed a summons with notice in New York state court on June 27, 2022. The defendant removed the case to federal court on October 11, 2022, filed an answer and counterclaim, and attached the Option Agreement as Exhibit 1.
The defendant also moved to seal Exhibit 1, relying on the agreement’s confidentiality provision. In that motion, however, the defendant stated that it took no position on whether the agreement needed to be sealed. On November 11, 2022, the plaintiff filed a complaint publicly and attached the same agreement as Exhibit B without asking the court to seal it.
Court’s Analysis
The court explained that the public generally has a right to access court records. Because the plaintiff had filed the agreement publicly and the defendant did not take a position on whether it should be sealed, the court found that neither party had rebutted that right of public access.
Ruling
The court denied the defendant’s motion to seal. It directed the Clerk of Court to unseal the document at Docket No. 5 and to close the motion at Docket No. 2. The order addressed access to the agreement and did not decide the underlying dispute about the Option Agreement.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.