Emergency Physician Services of New York v. UnitedHealth Group, Inc.
- John Koeltl
- 1:20-cv-09183
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Emergency Physician Services v. UnitedHealth, defendants asked Judge Koeltl to seal Exhibit 4; the provided text does not show a court ruling.
The request directly concerns the defendant entities and Exhibit 4. It also concerns individuals whose sensitive personal information may appear in the exhibit, although the provided text does not identify those individuals.
What happened
Emergency Physician Services of New York v. UnitedHealth Group, Inc. concerns defendants’ request to file Exhibit 4 under seal in connection with their opposition to objections to a magistrate judge’s order.
The defendants said Exhibit 4 contains confidential business information and sensitive personal information protected from public disclosure by federal health-privacy law. They relied on the case’s protective order and asked the court for permission to file the exhibit under seal.
The provided text is a letter from defense counsel to Judge John G. Koeltl, not a court opinion or order. It does not state whether Judge Koeltl granted or denied the request.
The detailed version
- Emergency Physician Services of New York v. UnitedHealth Group, Inc. · No. 1:20-cv-09183
- John Koeltl
- Dec. 15, 2022
Nature of the Document
The provided text is a letter from counsel for UnitedHealth Group, Inc., United HealthCare Services, Inc., UMR, Inc., UnitedHealthcare Service LLC, UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company, and Oxford Health Plans LLC. The letter asks the court for permission to file Exhibit 4 under seal.
Request
The defendants sought to seal Exhibit 4 to their opposition to objections to Magistrate Judge Netburn’s November 16, 2022 order and to an alternative request for permission to amend the amended complaint. The letter says the request was made under the court’s individual practices, the Southern District of New York’s local rules and sealed-records instructions, and a protective order entered in the case.
Reasons Given
The defendants argued that Exhibit 4 contains confidential information covered by the protective order, including sensitive personally identifiable information. The letter states that disclosure of the information could create privacy concerns and competitive harm, and that some of the personal information is protected from public disclosure by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act and its implementing regulations.
The letter also cites the general presumption of public access to judicial documents and argues that this presumption must be balanced against competing interests, including privacy and the potential injury from disclosure. It requests permission to file the unredacted exhibit under seal as required by the protective order.
Disposition
The provided text does not contain a ruling by Judge Koeltl. It therefore does not establish whether the motion to seal was granted, denied, or otherwise resolved.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.