Contant v. Bank Of America Corporation

Background

Plaintiffs filed a reply memorandum supporting their motion to distribute interest income earned on settlement funds. They asked to seal four dollar figures in that reply. The figures related to the individual claims of AMA and FX Primus, while the publicly available Claims Register kept claimant identities anonymized.

The four figures were: (1) FX Primus’s approved claim amount; (2) an amount by which that claim might be reduced; (3) the sum of those two amounts; and (4) the corresponding amount by which AMA’s claim would increase on a proportional basis if the reduction occurred. The reply disclosed that the reduction represented 3.3% of FX Primus’s claim. Plaintiffs argued that disclosure of any of the first three figures could allow the remaining figures to be calculated, and that disclosure of the fourth could allow AMA’s claim amount to be determined.

The court had previously denied the initial sealing motion without prejudice and allowed plaintiffs to renew it. The renewed motion sought to seal only those four figures, while leaving aggregate claim information and anonymized individual claim amounts publicly available.

Legal standard

The court explained that judicial documents generally carry a common-law presumption of public access. That presumption is not absolute. After determining the strength of the presumption, the court must balance it against competing interests. Sealing is permitted when specific findings show that it is necessary to protect a higher value and is narrowly tailored to do so. The court noted that protecting private, sensitive, and confidential information can qualify as a higher value.

Court’s ruling

Judge Schofield granted plaintiffs’ renewed motion to seal for substantially the reasons stated in the supporting memorandum. The court concluded that sealing the individual claim information protected settlement-class members’ privacy and was narrowly limited to four figures. The court also relied on the existing practice in this case and in other Southern District of New York class actions of keeping individual recovery amounts confidential while allowing aggregate information to remain public.

The Clerk of Court was directed to maintain Dkt. No. 595 under seal and close the motion at Dkt. No. 598.