B.M. v. Gonzalez
- Valerie Caproni
- 1:22-cv-02658
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In B.M. v. Gonzalez, Judge Caproni denied the plaintiff’s motion concerning confidentiality of employee disciplinary records.
The plaintiff, the defendants, and current and former employees whose disciplinary records may be produced in discovery.
What happened
In B.M. v. Gonzalez, the parties disputed whether employee disciplinary records should be treated as confidential under a proposed protective order.
The plaintiff argued that records involving current and former employees should not be confidential. The defendants argued that they should be allowed to designate those records as confidential. The court denied the plaintiff’s motion, finding that the records were presumptively private and that privacy concerns outweighed the public’s interest in access at this stage.
Judge Valerie Caproni directed the parties to submit a revised proposed protective order by January 27, 2023. She noted that the privacy analysis could change when the case reaches the summary-judgment stage.
The detailed version
- B.M. v. Gonzalez · No. 1:22-cv-02658
- Valerie Caproni
- Jan. 23, 2023
Background
The parties appeared by telephone to discuss a discovery dispute about whether employee disciplinary records would be covered by their proposed protective order. The protective order had not yet been executed. The plaintiff filed a motion arguing that disciplinary records of the defendants’ current and former employees should not be treated as confidential. The defendants argued that they should be permitted to designate those records as confidential.
Ruling
The court denied the plaintiff’s motion. It found that disciplinary records belonging to the defendants’ current and former employees are presumptively private. At this stage, the court determined that the public right of access to information did not outweigh the employees’ privacy interests because disclosure could cause economic or emotional harm.
The court stated that the privacy-interest analysis may change at the summary-judgment stage. It also ordered the parties to resubmit their proposed protective order in accordance with the order no later than January 27, 2023.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.