Farrell v. City of New York

Background

Donna Farrell filed this action against the City of New York and the Equal Employment Opportunity Division of the New York City Police Department. The opinion states that Farrell was representing herself and had paid the filing fee. She asked the court to redact all personal contact and address information from her filings, citing her law-enforcement background and privacy concerns.

Motion to Seal and Redact

The court explained that court filings are generally judicial documents subject to a presumption of public access. It applied the rules governing public access, privacy interests, and sensitive information in court filings.

The court found that the limited personal identifying information Farrell sought to redact was not central to the court’s exercise of its constitutional authority. It concluded that her privacy concerns outweighed the limited public-access interest in that information. The court also noted that the federal rules, the Southern District of New York’s electronic-filing privacy policy, and the judge’s individual rules permit redaction of certain sensitive information. The court identified at least one tax identification number in Farrell’s filings that should be redacted.

The court therefore granted in part and denied in part Farrell’s motion to seal. It granted the request to redact sensitive personal identifying information, subject to Farrell’s resubmitting documents containing that information with proposed redactions within 45 days. The court gave examples: a home address should be reduced to the city and state, a phone number should be reduced to its last four digits, and a tax identification number should be redacted. If Farrell did not submit the proposed redactions within 45 days, the court stated that it would direct the Clerk to make the filings viewable to the public.

For future requests to redact documents, the court directed Farrell to submit a letter-motion for approval, publicly file a version containing the proposed redactions, and file an unredacted version under seal with the proposed redactions highlighted.

Summonses and Service

The Clerk was directed to issue a summons for each defendant. Farrell was directed to serve the summonses and complaint within 90 days after the summonses were issued. The court explained that, because summonses had not been issued when the complaint was filed, the service period was extended to run from the date of issuance. If Farrell neither served the defendants nor requested an extension within that period, the court stated that it might dismiss the claims under Rules 4 and 41 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure for failure to prosecute.

Disposition

The court granted in part and denied in part the motion to seal, directed the Clerk to keep ECF Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 4 under seal and viewable only to the parties and the court, terminated the motion at ECF No. 4, and ordered summonses issued. Judge Jennifer L. Rochon did not decide the underlying claims in this order.