Emergency Physician Services of New York v. UnitedHealth Group, Inc.

Background

Defendants UnitedHealth Group, Inc., United HealthCare Services, Inc., UMR, Inc., UnitedHealthcare Service LLC, UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company, and Oxford Health Plans LLC asked the court to redact confidential metrics and information from their objections to Magistrate Judge Netburn’s discovery ruling. That ruling denied relief concerning the TeamHealth Plaintiffs’ electronic-document production.

The defendants said the information was confidential under the parties’ protective order. They identified the metrics as sensitive information about the TeamHealth Plaintiffs’ business and argued that disclosure could place the plaintiffs at a competitive disadvantage. The filing also stated that the plaintiffs had previously consented to redactions of similar information and that the court had previously redacted identical information in another filing.

Court’s reasoning

The court explained that documents relevant to the judicial process generally carry a presumption of public access, but that presumption must be balanced against competing interests. Relevant factors include the privacy interests of parties resisting disclosure and the nature and degree of injury that disclosure could cause.

The court recognized that highly sensitive business and financial information may justify sealing or redaction, particularly when disclosure could cause competitive harm. It also noted that the protective order required a party seeking to file unredacted confidential or attorneys’-eyes-only information to seek permission to file it under seal unless the producing party agreed otherwise.

Ruling

The application was granted. The court permitted the defendants to redact the specified confidential metrics and information from the filing. The order did not resolve the underlying discovery dispute or address the merits of the parties’ claims.