Chanel, Inc. v. What Comes Around Goes Around LLC
- Louis Stanton
- 1:18-cv-02253
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 10
In Chanel v. What Comes Around Goes Around, Judge Stanton received Chanel’s request to seal a third-party expert report, but the provided text shows no ruling.
Chanel, Inc.; the defendants in the Chanel case; Rockwell Automation, Inc., whose expert report Chanel sought to file under seal; and members of the public seeking access to the court filing.
What happened
In Chanel, Inc. v. What Comes Around Goes Around LLC, Chanel asked the Southern District of New York to let it file under seal an expert report prepared for a different case. Chanel said the report was confidential under a protective order issued in that other case and that only the report’s survey format, not its confidential details, was relevant to Chanel’s filing.
The filing argued that sealing was justified because the report belonged to Rockwell Automation, a company that was not involved in the Chanel case, and because another federal court had already ordered the report sealed. The provided text also includes that earlier court’s order, which granted a joint request by Rockwell Automation and Radwell International to seal specified materials containing confidential business and financial information.
Judge Stanton is identified as the judge in the Chanel case, but the provided text is Chanel’s request rather than an order deciding it. It therefore does not show whether the request to seal was granted or denied.
The detailed version
- Chanel, Inc. v. What Comes Around Goes Around LLC · No. 1:18-cv-02253
- Louis Stanton
- Sept. 20, 2023
Nature of the filing
The provided text is a letter from Chanel’s counsel to Judge Louis L. Stanton. Chanel asks for permission to file Exhibit J to its opposition to defendants’ motion in limine and Daubert motion under seal. The exhibit is an expert report written by David Franklyn for Rockwell Automation, Inc. in a separate case. Chanel says Rockwell designated the report confidential under a protective order and that the court in that separate case granted a joint request to seal the report.
Chanel’s arguments
Chanel argues that the report should be sealed because its confidential material belongs to Rockwell, which is not involved in the Chanel case. Chanel says the confidential details of the expert’s survey are not relevant to its opposition; Chanel says the relevant point is only the survey’s format. The letter relies on the general principle that court records may be sealed when specific findings show sealing is essential to protect an important interest and is narrowly tailored to that interest.
Embedded prior order
The text includes an order from the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey in the separate case involving Rockwell Automation and Radwell International. Magistrate Judge Joel Schneider granted the parties’ joint superseding motion to seal. That order directed the clerk to keep listed documents under seal and directed the parties to file redacted versions. The New Jersey court found that the documents contained confidential business information, including sales and revenue data, internal strategies and research, and confidential client information, and that disclosure could cause serious competitive harm.
Disposition shown in the provided text
The provided text does not include an order by Judge Stanton granting or denying Chanel’s request. It contains the request itself and the embedded New Jersey sealing order, which is not a ruling on Chanel’s request in the Southern District of New York. Accordingly, no disposition of the Chanel sealing request can be stated from this text.
Read the full 10-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.