Krohnengold v. New York Life Insurance Company
- Jesse Furman
- 1:21-cv-01778
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 21
In Krohnengold v. New York Life Insurance Company, Judge Furman ordered rules protecting confidential discovery materials and limiting their use.
The plaintiffs, defendants, and any nonparties who produce or receive discovery materials in the action, along with their counsel, experts, witnesses, vendors, insurers, and other authorized recipients.
What happened
In Krohnengold v. New York Life Insurance Company, the plaintiffs and defendants agreed to a confidentiality order for materials exchanged during discovery. The order covers documents, testimony, electronic information, and other discovery materials that a party reasonably and in good faith believes contain confidential business or personal information.
The order limits use of confidential materials to this lawsuit, including related appeals, settlement efforts, and enforcement of insurance rights. It describes who may receive the materials, how recipients must protect them, procedures for challenging confidentiality designations, handling inadvertently disclosed privileged materials, and procedures for seeking permission to file materials under seal.
Judge Jesse M. Furman ordered the stipulation on November 18, 2022. The order states that it does not itself determine whether any material is actually confidential and does not allow the parties to file materials under seal without the court’s permission.
The detailed version
- Krohnengold v. New York Life Insurance Company · No. 1:21-cv-01778
- Jesse Furman
- Nov. 18, 2022
What the court ordered
The plaintiffs and defendants jointly submitted a proposed stipulation and confidentiality order under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(c) and Federal Rule of Evidence 502(d). The court ordered the stipulation on November 18, 2022. The order governs discovery materials produced by the parties or nonparties in the action.
Confidentiality designations
A producing party may designate discovery materials as “Confidential” when it reasonably and in good faith believes the materials contain confidential or proprietary business or personal information protected under Rule 26(c). Examples listed in the order include financial and business information, tax data, competitive analyses, personnel information, 401(k) participant or plan information, and other commercially sensitive or private information. The order explains how documents, electronically stored information, and deposition testimony must be marked.
A receiving party may challenge a confidentiality designation. The parties must first follow specified notice and meet-and-confer procedures; if they cannot resolve the dispute, the receiving party may ask the court to decide whether the designation is proper. The order places the burden of supporting the designation on the party that designated the material as confidential.
Use and disclosure limits
Confidential discovery materials may be used only for prosecuting, defending, appealing, settling, or enforcing insurance rights related to this action. The order identifies permitted recipients, including the parties, counsel and staff, the court, court reporters, experts and consultants, witnesses, litigation-support vendors, mediators or arbitrators, insurers and their counsel, and certain officers, directors, employees, and class representatives involved in the action. Some recipients must sign a written undertaking agreeing to follow the order.
Recipients must use reasonable care to protect the materials. The order also establishes procedures for unauthorized disclosures, subpoenas, inadvertent production of privileged material, and inadvertent failure to mark material as confidential. After the action ends, the parties must make commercially reasonable efforts to destroy or return confidential discovery materials within 100 days, subject to exceptions for certain work product, served papers, and court filings.
Court filings and the scope of the order
The order requires a party seeking to file confidential material under seal or in redacted form to follow Judge Furman’s individual rules and seek leave from the court. The order expressly states that the stipulation does not itself authorize filing anything under seal. It also states that a confidentiality designation does not establish that material is relevant, privileged, admissible, or subject to protection, and does not resolve evidentiary objections.
The court’s order therefore sets procedures for handling discovery; it does not decide the parties’ underlying claims or determine that any particular document is confidential. The opinion text includes visibly corrupted language in the paragraph concerning the court’s review, but the surrounding provisions clearly state that the order makes no finding that the materials are confidential.
Read the full 21-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.