de Lacour v. Colgate-Palmolive Co.
- Kimba Wood
- 1:16-cv-08364
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In de Lacour v. Colgate-Palmolive Co., Judge Wood granted plaintiffs’ unopposed request to file specified materials under seal to protect proprietary information.
The plaintiffs may file the specified materials with redactions publicly and file the corresponding materials under seal; the order protects proprietary business information designated as confidential by Colgate-Palmolive Company and Tom’s of Maine, Inc. and limits public access to the redacted material.
What happened
In de Lacour v. Colgate-Palmolive Co., plaintiffs Anne de Lacour, Andrea Wright, and Loree Moran asked to file portions of their court papers and exhibits under seal or with redactions. The materials concerned their opposition to defendants’ summary-judgment motions and a motion involving plaintiffs’ experts.
The plaintiffs said the materials contained business information that Colgate-Palmolive Company and Tom’s of Maine, Inc. had designated as confidential. They also said the defendants did not object. The plaintiffs proposed publicly filing redacted versions and filing unredacted versions under seal.
The court granted the request. After reviewing the proposed redactions, Judge Kimba M. Wood found that they were narrowly tailored to protect proprietary business information and that the information’s sensitivity outweighed the public’s presumptive right of access. The court said it could reconsider the sealing decisions later after notifying the parties.
The detailed version
- de Lacour v. Colgate-Palmolive Co. · No. 1:16-cv-08364
- Kimba Wood
- Dec. 12, 2022
Request
Plaintiffs Anne de Lacour, Andrea Wright, and Loree Moran asked to file under seal portions of their memoranda opposing summary-judgment motions by Tom’s of Maine, Inc. and Colgate-Palmolive Company, their responses to the defendants’ statements of material facts, specified exhibits, and a memorandum opposing the defendants’ motion to exclude reports and testimony from plaintiffs’ experts J. Michael Dennis and Colin B. Weir.
Reason for Request
The plaintiffs stated that the documents and exhibits contained proprietary information that Colgate-Palmolive Company and Tom’s of Maine, Inc. had designated as confidential. They also stated that the defendants did not object. The plaintiffs proposed filing public versions with redactions and filing copies containing the redacted material under seal.
Ruling
The court granted the plaintiffs’ request. After reviewing the proposed redactions, the court found that they were narrowly tailored to protect proprietary business information. The court determined that the information’s sensitivity outweighed the presumption of public access, relying on the access standard discussed in Lugosch v. Pyramid Co. of Onondaga. The court stated that it could reconsider the sealing determinations at any time, with notice to the parties, concerning any sealed or redacted portions of the plaintiffs’ materials.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.