Spectrum Dynamics Medical Limited v. General Electric Company
- Vernon Broderick
- 1:18-cv-11386
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 4
In Spectrum Dynamics v. General Electric, Judge Parker partly granted and partly denied one sealing motion and granted another.
Spectrum Dynamics Medical Limited and the defendants, including General Electric Company, were affected by the court’s rules about which information could remain redacted in filings connected to the discovery motion.
What happened
In Spectrum Dynamics Medical Limited v. General Electric Company, the parties asked the court to keep information connected to a motion to compel out of the public record.
The court found that the defendants’ request was too broad. Some alleged trade-secret information could remain redacted if it was still not public, but information already disclosed in court filings, patent applications, websites, or the complaint generally could not remain sealed. The plaintiff separately sought to redact filenames from the defendants’ privilege log.
Judge Katharine H. Parker granted in part and denied in part the defendants’ sealing motion at ECF No. 699, ordered narrower refiling, and granted in its entirety the plaintiff’s sealing motion at ECF No. 735.
The detailed version
- Spectrum Dynamics Medical Limited v. General Electric Company · No. 1:18-cv-11386
- Vernon Broderick
- Aug. 21, 2023
Background
The defendants had moved to compel production of documents that Spectrum Dynamics Medical Limited withheld based on privilege. While briefing that motion, the parties filed motions asking the court to seal information in their briefs and supporting materials. This opinion addresses only the sealing motions; the court stated that it would issue a separate order on the motion to compel.
The court treated the materials as judicial documents because they were filed in connection with a discovery motion. Judicial documents carry a presumption of public access, although the court said that presumption was not particularly strong for materials connected to a discovery motion. Even so, sealing had to be supported by specific findings and narrowly tailored to protect higher interests.
Motion at ECF No. 699
The court found the defendants’ request to seal portions of their moving brief and declaration overbroad. Information describing alleged trade secrets could remain redacted if it was still non-public. But information describing alleged trade secrets that had already been publicly disclosed in this case could not remain redacted. The court also found that most of the other proposed redactions did not appear to involve non-public or meaningfully sensitive information.
The court identified several examples. Images from the defendants’ patent applications, an image of the defendants’ medical device that had been publicly filed and appeared similarly on the defendants’ website, and images taken from the publicly filed second amended complaint generally did not justify sealing. For material drawn from the complaint, only information that had been redacted there should be redacted in the new filing. The court also found no reason to continue redacting an email whose contents were described in the brief and were not sensitive.
The court allowed Exhibit 2 to the Butler Declaration, identified as Spectrum Dynamics Medical Limited’s privilege log, to be redacted in its entirety. It found no reason to permit redaction of most other exhibits, which primarily consisted of publicly available patent applications.
Motion at ECF No. 735 and disposition
The plaintiff’s motion to seal information filed with its opposition brief was narrower because it sought only to redact filenames from the defendants’ privilege log. The court granted that motion in its entirety.
The court granted in part and denied in part the defendants’ motion to seal at ECF No. 699. It ordered the defendants to re-file their moving brief and declaration with substantially narrower redactions by September 5, 2023. If the defendants redacted information beyond what the decision expressly permitted, they had to file a renewed motion to seal explaining the proposed redactions. The court granted in its entirety the plaintiff’s motion at ECF No. 735 and directed the Clerk to terminate both motions.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.