PharmacyChecker.com LLC v. National Association of Boards of Pharmacy
- Kenneth Karas
- 7:19-cv-07577
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In PharmacyChecker.com v. National Association of Boards of Pharmacy, Judge Karas granted redactions of confidential business information from the court’s opinion.
PharmacyChecker.com LLC, the other parties to the case, and members of the public seeking access to the court’s opinion.
What happened
PharmacyChecker.com LLC asked the court to redact portions of its opinion that referred to information the court had previously treated as confidential and proprietary. The request concerned information about the company’s operations, business strategies, market, website users, financial condition, and internal systems.
PharmacyChecker.com argued that disclosure could help competitors and harm its business, and could invade the privacy interests of people who were not parties to the case. The available text does not include the court’s full May 23 opinion or identify every passage to be redacted.
Judge Kenneth M. Karas granted PharmacyChecker.com LLC’s request to redact certain confidential business information from the opinion. He directed the company to file a redacted opinion by June 9, 2023, and requested that the Clerk terminate the pending motion at Docket 333.
The detailed version
- PharmacyChecker.com LLC v. National Association of Boards of Pharmacy · No. 7:19-cv-07577
- Kenneth Karas
- June 6, 2023
Background
The available text is a June 5, 2023 letter from PharmacyChecker.com LLC, identified as the plaintiff, concerning proposed redactions to the court’s May 23, 2023 opinion and order. The letter states that the court had previously sealed information in the parties’ briefs and motions for summary judgment. It also states that the court had given the parties until June 5 to propose redactions before the opinion was made public.
Request
PharmacyChecker.com asked the court to redact portions of the opinion that used or referred to information previously treated as its confidential and proprietary information. According to the letter, the information included details about the company’s operations, business strategies, the market in which it operates, website users, financial condition, and systems and processes. PharmacyChecker.com argued that disclosure could provide competitors with valuable insight and cause competitive harm. It also referred to privacy interests of non-parties.
The letter described the public’s qualified right to access judicial documents and argued that confidential business information and privacy interests can outweigh that right in appropriate circumstances. The available text does not include the full underlying opinion or specify each redacted passage.
Ruling
The court granted Plaintiff’s request to redact certain confidential business information from the court’s opinion at Docket No.
- The court directed PharmacyChecker.com LLC to file a redacted opinion no later than June 9,
- The court also requested that the Clerk terminate the pending motion at Docket No.
- The text supplied does not state a disposition of the underlying antitrust claims or of the motion’s substance beyond this redaction ruling.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.