Joaquin v. New York Athletic Club
- Gabriel Gorenstein
- 1:23-cv-01235
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 9
In Joaquin v. New York Athletic Club, Judge Woods entered a protective order governing confidential discovery in the case.
The plaintiffs, defendants, their officers, agents, employees, attorneys, certain vendors and service providers, witnesses, experts, mediators or arbitrators, court personnel, and anyone else with actual notice of the order who receives or handles designated confidential discovery material.
What happened
Joaquin v. New York Athletic Club involves Franklin Joaquin, Eduardo Casusol, Mohammed Miah, Milagros Carlin Bergante, and Oscar Jairo Rodriguez Londono against New York Athletic Club and Javier Vargas. The parties, through their lawyers, asked the court to protect certain private and competitively sensitive information exchanged during discovery.
The court issued the agreed protective order after finding good cause. It limits disclosure of properly designated confidential discovery materials, permits use only for this case and related appeals, creates procedures for challenging confidentiality designations, and generally requires return or destruction of the materials after the case ends. The order does not decide whether any material is ultimately confidential or admissible at trial.
Judge Gregory H. Woods ordered the parties and other covered people to follow the confidentiality restrictions and directed the Clerk of Court to terminate the pending motion at Docket No. 42.
The detailed version
- Joaquin v. New York Athletic Club · No. 1:23-cv-01235
- Gabriel Gorenstein
- Dec. 29, 2023
Nature of the order
The parties jointly stipulated to a confidentiality agreement and protective order under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(c). A protective order sets limits on how information exchanged during discovery may be used or disclosed. The court found good cause for an appropriately tailored order covering the pretrial phase of the case and ordered the parties and other covered persons to comply.
Protected information
A producing party may designate only portions of discovery material that it reasonably and in good faith believes contain certain previously undisclosed information, including financial information, information about ownership or control of a nonpublic company, business or marketing plans, and personal or intimate information such as customer names and contact information. The court may later give confidential status to another category of information.
The order establishes procedures for marking documents and designating deposition testimony. A producing party may also correct an earlier failure to designate material as confidential by giving written notice and providing replacement copies within two business days.
Disclosure and use limits
Confidential discovery material may be disclosed to specified recipients, including the parties, counsel and their staff, service providers, certain mediators or arbitrators, document recipients, potential witnesses, experts, deposition stenographers, and the court. Some recipients must first receive the order and sign a nondisclosure agreement. The material may be used only to prosecute or defend this case and related appeals, not for another purpose or proceeding.
When customer identification or contact information is designated confidential, the other parties generally may not use it to contact those customers. A party may ask the court for permission to do so upon showing substantial need and just cause. Publicly available information and information obtained outside this case are not covered by that restriction.
Court filings and challenges
The order requires a public redacted filing and a sealed unredacted filing when confidential discovery material is submitted to the court, along with a particularized application and supporting declaration justifying sealing. The court warned that it is unlikely to seal or otherwise protect material introduced at trial merely because it was previously designated confidential.
A party may object to a confidentiality designation before trial. If the parties cannot resolve the objection, counsel must present the dispute to the court under the court's individual practices. A party may likewise request additional disclosure limits, such as an attorneys'-eyes-only designation, in extraordinary circumstances.
End of the case and enforcement
Within 60 days after final disposition of the action, including appeals, recipients generally must return or destroy confidential discovery material and certify that they kept no copies or other reproductions. Lawyers specifically retained for the case may keep archival copies of specified case materials, but those copies remain subject to the order. The order continues after the litigation ends, and the court retains jurisdiction to enforce it and impose contempt sanctions.
The order does not waive objections to discovery, waive privilege or other protection, or decide whether evidence is admissible at trial. The court also directed the Clerk of Court to terminate the motion pending at Docket No. 42. This was a discovery-related procedural order; it did not decide the parties' underlying claims.
Read the full 9-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.