Citgo Petroleum Corporation v. Ascot Underwriting Limited
Citgo Petroleum Corporation v. Ascot Underwriting Limited, for and on behalf of Lloyd's Syndicate 1414
- Gregory Woods
- 1:21-cv-00389
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Citgo Petroleum Corporation v. Starstone Insurance SE, Judge Woods granted the parties’ motion to seal limited identifying information about a third-party witness.
The parties’ filings, the third-party witness whose identity and related information were redacted, other witnesses whose names could reveal that identity, and the public’s access to those limited portions of the court record.
What happened
In Citgo Petroleum Corporation v. Starstone Insurance SE, the parties jointly asked to redact a witness’s name and limited information from materials filed with their requests for a decision without trial. They also sought to redact other witnesses’ names because those names could reveal the witness’s identity.
The court found that the materials were documents used in the case, but that the public’s need to see the limited redacted information was relatively modest because the documents would remain understandable. The court also gave substantial weight to the witness’s privacy interests and sworn statement that the witness had previously been threatened and feared for their safety.
Judge Gregory H. Woods concluded that the reasons against disclosure outweighed the public’s interest in access and granted the motion to seal. The court emphasized that the ruling applied only to the information and circumstances presented at this stage and did not guarantee sealing in another context.
The detailed version
- Citgo Petroleum Corporation v. Ascot Underwriting Limited · No. 1:21-cv-00389
- Gregory Woods
- Mar. 15, 2023
Background
The parties jointly moved to seal portions of evidentiary submissions connected with their cross-motions for summary judgment. They did not seek to seal any document in its entirety. Instead, they sought redactions of a specified third-party witness’s name and factual allegations sourced from that witness because disclosure could reveal the witness’s identity. They also sought to redact the names of other witnesses who testified about the same subject matter. The requested redactions concerned summary-judgment motions, Local Rule 56.1 statements, opposition and reply briefs, and related exhibits and declarations.
Court’s Analysis
The court applied the Second Circuit’s three-step framework for sealing judicial documents. First, it determined that the materials were judicial documents because the parties had submitted them to the court and they were relevant and useful to the court’s work. Second, it found that the presumption of public access—the general principle favoring public inspection of judicial documents—had relatively modest weight as to the information at issue. The requested redactions were limited to certain names and targeted information, so the public could still read and understand the documents and the court’s summary-judgment opinion.
Third, the court weighed the interests favoring nondisclosure. It gave significant weight to the privacy interests of the innocent third-party witness. The witness had declared under penalty of perjury that they had been threatened in the past and feared for their safety if their identity were disclosed. The court concluded that these concerns outweighed the public-access interest in the limited information sought to be redacted.
Disposition
The court granted the motion to seal. It stated that the decision was limited to the information at issue, the stage of the case, and the record before it. The court cautioned that the order should not be understood to mean that it would approve sealing the same or similar information in another context in the litigation. The Clerk was directed to terminate the motion at Docket No. 122.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.