BakeMark USA LLC v. Negron
- Analisa Torres
- 1:23-cv-02360
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 11
In BakeMark USA LLC v. Negron, Magistrate Judge Moses granted three sealing motions, granted two in part, and denied one.
BakeMark USA LLC, Brian Negron, the other defendants, and non-party customers and employees whose personal or commercially sensitive information appeared in the filings.
What happened
BakeMark USA LLC v. Negron involved six requests to seal or redact documents filed in the case, including filings containing purchase-price information, personal information, customer details, and other commercially sensitive material.
The court applied the presumption that judicial documents should be available to the public. It allowed narrowly tailored redactions or sealing when the information involved legitimate privacy or competitive concerns, but rejected requests supported only by broad claims of possible harm.
Magistrate Judge Barbara Moses granted the motions at Docket numbers 16, 101, and 108; granted the motions at Docket numbers 64 and 80 in part; and denied the motion at Docket number 92. The court also directed that several specified filings be unsealed.
The detailed version
- BakeMark USA LLC v. Negron · No. 1:23-cv-02360
- Analisa Torres
- Jan. 16, 2024
Background
The court considered six motions seeking to seal or redact documents filed in the case: Docket numbers 16, 64, 80, 92, 101, and 108. The requests concerned documents such as pleadings, declarations, deposition materials, exhibits, proposed findings of fact, and transcripts of an evidentiary hearing.
The requested protections covered several categories of information, including the price BakeMark USA LLC paid to acquire Sidco Food Distribution Corp.; private individuals’ license plate numbers; customer names, sales amounts, order information, and pricing; employee compensation information; proprietary price lists; business strategies; profit margins; and server username and password information.
Legal standard
The court explained that judicial documents—documents relevant to the court’s work and useful in the judicial process—are presumptively available to the public. When a party seeks sealing or redaction, the court weighs the strength of that public-access presumption against competing interests, including legitimate privacy interests and the protection of trade secrets or sensitive commercial information. Any restriction must be narrowly tailored, and general claims of possible harm are insufficient.
Rulings on the motions
Docket 16
The court granted BakeMark’s motion. It approved redactions concerning the Sidco acquisition price and private individuals’ license plate information. It also allowed two exhibits to remain entirely under seal: a Bakers Depot LLC proprietary price list and the unredacted Sidco asset purchase agreement. The unredacted versions filed at Docket 18 were to remain sealed.
Docket 64
The court granted the defendants’ motion in part. Redactions to specified exhibits concerning Bakers Depot’s sales to customers were approved. Exhibit 1 to the declaration of Jason R. Finkelstein, an entire 371-page deposition transcript, could not remain entirely sealed based on the showing made. BakeMark was ordered to propose specific redactions by January 23, 2024. Exhibit 1 was to remain sealed pending further review, while Exhibits 2 through 5 were to be unsealed. The court also stated that it would later revisit redactions to the defendants’ memorandum concerning the deposition transcript.
Docket 80
The court granted BakeMark’s motion in part. It approved redactions to specified portions of the Judith A. Archer declaration and continued sealing certain exhibits containing commercially sensitive information. The court rejected the defendants’ broad justification for sealing or redacting other exhibits and ordered them to propose specific, narrowly tailored redactions by January 23, 2024. Exhibits K, M, and AG to the Archer declaration were to be unsealed. The court would later revisit related redactions to the Archer declaration and BakeMark’s reply memorandum.
Docket 92
The court denied BakeMark’s motion concerning an excerpt from Brian Negron’s deposition. The court ordered the excerpt at Docket 93 to be unsealed because the defendants did not request its continued sealing and the excerpt was not among the deposition pages they had identified as confidential or sensitive.
Docket 101
The court granted BakeMark’s motion to maintain under seal the unredacted version of its proposed findings of fact, which contained references to the Sidco acquisition price.
Docket 108
The court granted the parties’ joint motion for limited redactions to the evidentiary-hearing transcript. The redactions concerned the Sidco acquisition price, JB Freight LLC’s confidential business strategies, and customer profit margins. The unredacted and highlighted transcript versions were to remain sealed.
Report and Recommendation
The court noted that a January 12, 2024 Report and Recommendation concerning BakeMark’s motion for a preliminary injunction had initially been filed under seal because it discussed sealed materials. The parties were ordered to advise the court by January 23, 2024, whether redactions were needed before the report was unsealed.
Final disposition
The order states that the motions at Docket numbers 16, 101, and 108 were GRANTED; the motions at Docket numbers 64 and 80 were GRANTED IN PART; and the motion at Docket number 92 was DENIED. The Clerk was directed to close those motions and unseal the filings at Docket numbers 66-2 through 66-5, 81-12, 81-14, 81-34, and 93.
Read the full 11-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.