Johnson v. Esports Entertainment Group, Inc.
- Katharine Parker
- 1:22-cv-10861
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 5
In Johnson v. Esports Entertainment Group, Judge Parker granted some sealing requests, denied one, and required public refiling.
Grant Johnson and Esports Entertainment Group, Inc.; non-parties whose personal, financial, or business information appeared in the submitted materials, including RB360.
What happened
In Johnson v. Esports Entertainment Group, Grant Johnson and Esports Entertainment Group, Inc. asked the court to seal or redact documents filed with a request to seek summary judgment. The requests concerned deposition transcripts, an exhibit, an email exchange, and board minutes.
The court granted Johnson’s request to seal Exhibit A but denied his request to seal Exhibit D, which Johnson had to refile publicly. The court granted the company’s request to seal Exhibits B and F. Exhibit C had already been unsealed by agreement and filed publicly.
Judge Parker ruled that the private personal, financial, and business information in the approved exhibits outweighed the public’s access interest. The court closed both sealing motions after resolving them.
The detailed version
- Johnson v. Esports Entertainment Group, Inc. · No. 1:22-cv-10861
- Katharine Parker
- Sept. 14, 2023
Background
The court considered two letter motions asking to seal or redact documents filed in connection with a pre-motion letter seeking permission to file a summary-judgment motion. Grant Johnson moved to seal Exhibits A and D to the pre-motion letter and portions of the letter referring to those exhibits. Esports Entertainment Group, Inc. moved to seal or redact Exhibits B, C, and F filed with its opposition.
Legal standard
The court explained that filed materials relevant to the court’s work are judicial documents and are generally presumed to be available to the public under the common law and the First Amendment. The court first determines whether the material is a judicial document, then assesses the strength of the public-access presumption, and finally decides whether interests such as personal privacy, attorney-client privilege, public safety, or protection of competitively sensitive business information outweigh that presumption. Any sealing must be necessary and narrowly tailored.
The court found that the materials were judicial documents because they were filed with a letter motion related to a proposed summary-judgment motion. It nevertheless found that the public-access presumption was not particularly strong because the materials were filed with a non-dispositive pre-motion letter rather than with an actual dispositive motion.
Johnson’s motion to seal
The court granted the motion to seal Exhibit A. Exhibit A was part of the deposition transcript of Michael Villani, a corporate deposition witness. The court relied on the transcript’s status as an unsigned and unreviewed rough draft, as well as its inclusion of the company’s sensitive business information and the witness’s personal information.
The court denied the motion to seal Exhibit D because the company had removed its confidentiality designation. Johnson was ordered to refile the letter with Exhibit D unsealed.
Esports Entertainment Group’s motion to seal
The court granted the motion to seal Exhibits B and F. Exhibit B was an email exchange about a business engagement with RB360, a non-party, and included specific contract financial terms and strategic reasons for ending the deal. The court found that the privacy interests and protection of business and financial information outweighed public access.
Exhibit F consisted of board minutes from August 23, 2022. The court approved redactions concerning confidential proprietary information covered by a non-disclosure agreement and financial information related to negotiations with a non-party and financial terms involving a third party. The court found the redactions narrowly tailored because they did not conceal non-financial terms relevant to the action.
Exhibit C was a transcript of Johnson’s deposition. The opinion states that the parties agreed to unseal it and that it was publicly filed at ECF No. 75.
Disposition
The court ordered Johnson to refile the letter motion at ECF No. 61 with Exhibit D unsealed by September 21, 2023. After resolving the issues in the two letter motions, the court requested that the clerk close ECF Nos. 62 and 68.
Read the full 5-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.