Biston v. Professional Claims Bureau, LLC
- Cathy Seibel
- 7:23-cv-07824
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 9
In Biston v. Professional Claims Bureau, LLC, Judge Seibel approved the parties’ stipulated protective order governing confidential discovery.
Avrohom Biston, Professional Claims Bureau, LLC, their lawyers and specified representatives, and anyone else covered by or given notice of the protective order. Covered recipients must restrict disclosure and use of designated confidential discovery material and may have to return or destroy it after the case ends.
What happened
Avrohom Biston v. Professional Claims Bureau, LLC concerns the parties’ request for rules protecting nonpublic and competitively sensitive information disclosed during discovery. The parties agreed to the proposed order through their lawyers.
The order limits disclosure of materials marked confidential, including certain financial, business, ownership, and personal information. It allows disclosure to specified people, such as the parties, lawyers, experts, witnesses, and the court, often only after they sign a nondisclosure agreement. Confidential information may be used only for this case and related appeals.
Judge Cathy Seibel found good cause and ordered the parties and other notified people to follow the protective order. The order also establishes procedures for challenging confidentiality designations, filing confidential materials under seal, returning or destroying materials after the case ends, and enforcing the order through contempt sanctions.
The detailed version
- Biston v. Professional Claims Bureau, LLC · No. 7:23-cv-07824
- Cathy Seibel
- Dec. 22, 2023
Nature of the order
The parties jointly requested a protective order under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(c). The request concerned nonpublic and competitively sensitive information that might be disclosed during discovery. The court found good cause for an appropriately limited confidentiality order covering the pretrial phase of the case.
Confidentiality designations
The order defines “Discovery Material” as information produced or disclosed during discovery. A producing party may designate material as “Confidential” only when it reasonably and in good faith believes the material contains previously undisclosed information in specified categories, including financial information, information about ownership or control of a nonpublic company, business or marketing plans, product-development information, personal or intimate information, or another category later given confidential status by the court.
The producing party must mark the protected portions clearly and provide a version suitable for public use with confidential information redacted. Special procedures apply to deposition testimony and exhibits. During the 30 days after a deposition, the entire transcript must be treated as confidential; the producing party may then identify specific pages and lines for continued confidential treatment. A party may also later correct an earlier failure to designate material by giving written notice and providing replacement copies within two business days.
Permitted disclosures and use
Confidential material may be disclosed only to persons listed in the order. These include the parties and their insurers, counsel and assigned support personnel, outside vendors working on the case, mediators or arbitrators, certain people identified in a document, potential witnesses, experts and other specialized advisers, deposition stenographers, and the court and its personnel. Mediators, arbitrators, witnesses, experts, and specialized advisers must receive the order and sign the required nondisclosure agreement before receiving the material.
Recipients may use confidential material only to prosecute or defend this case and any appeals, not for another lawsuit or purpose. The order does not limit a party’s rights concerning its own documents or information. It also does not waive objections to discovery, privilege, or other protections, and it does not decide whether evidence will be admissible at trial.
Court filings and challenges
A party filing confidential discovery material or a filing that reveals such material must publicly file a redacted version and separately seek permission to file the unredacted version under seal. Any sealing request must be supported by a particularized justification. The order warns that the court is unlikely to seal material introduced at trial and states that the court may later decide not to give confidential treatment to designated material.
A party may object in writing to a confidentiality designation before trial. A party may also request additional disclosure limits, such as an “attorneys’ eyes only” designation in extraordinary circumstances. If the parties cannot resolve the dispute promptly, counsel must present it to the court under the applicable court rules.
Disposition and continuing obligations
The court ordered the parties and other persons with notice of the order to comply with its terms, subject to possible contempt sanctions. Within 60 days after final disposition of the case, including appeals, recipients generally must return or destroy confidential material and certify that they kept no copies or other reproductions. Counsel specifically retained for the case may keep archival copies of certain case materials, but those copies remain subject to the order. The order survives termination of the litigation, and the court retains jurisdiction to enforce it and impose contempt sanctions.
The opinion is a discovery-related protective order and does not decide the underlying claims between Avrohom Biston and Professional Claims Bureau, LLC.
Read the full 9-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.