Wood v. Mike Bloomberg 2020, Inc.

Background

The plaintiffs requested permission to keep redacted portions of Defendant’s Exhibit 2 and Defendant’s memorandum of law under seal. The filings were connected to the plaintiffs’ non-dispositive motion for class certification and, according to the request, addressed the Rule 23(a) adequacy requirement.

The requested redactions covered excerpts from and descriptions of plaintiff Tristan Angulo’s deposition testimony concerning his immigration and criminal history. The plaintiffs argued that this information had no connection to the wage claims or defenses in the case and that public disclosure could harm Angulo’s reputation and future employment prospects. They also argued that the redactions were limited and that the information was highly private. The letter stated that the defendant had included immigration-history information from the deposition but had not referred to it in the memorandum.

Legal standard described in the filing

The plaintiffs’ letter described the Second Circuit’s three-step approach to sealing judicial documents: determining whether the material is a judicial document, assessing the weight of the public-access presumption, and balancing that presumption against competing interests such as privacy. The letter also stated that the presumption is generally weaker for material filed in connection with a non-dispositive motion than for material introduced at trial or filed with a dispositive motion.

Ruling

The court granted the plaintiffs’ request. The material will remain sealed pending resolution of Plaintiffs’ Motion for Class Certification, docket entry 382. The opinion does not state that the court decided whether Angulo’s prior immigration or criminal history is relevant to the class-certification analysis; it only resolves the request to keep the specified material sealed.