Akhtar v. Aggarwala
- Figueredo
- 1:23-cv-06585
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Akhtar v. Aggarwala, Judge Figueredo kept a letter sealed, reset deadlines, and scheduled a settlement call.
The order affects Mohamed John Akhtar, La Buca Restaurant, Inc., Rohit Aggarwala and the other defendants, the plaintiffs’ counsel, pro se defendant Eric Eisenberg, and the Clerk of Court. It also sets deadlines for the parties and schedules a settlement-related call.
What happened
In Akhtar v. Aggarwala, the plaintiffs’ lawyer asked for more time to respond to a pending motion to dismiss and filed a separate explanation under seal, citing the federal health-privacy law known as HIPAA. Defendant Eric Eisenberg, who was representing himself, asked the court to unseal that explanation.
The court said citing HIPAA alone was not enough to justify sealing the letter. It directed the plaintiffs’ lawyer to submit a renewed request explaining why sealing was warranted, but ordered the Clerk to keep the letter sealed for now. The court also moved the plaintiffs’ response deadline to April 9, 2024, set defendants’ reply deadline for April 16, 2024, and scheduled a call about the possibility of a settlement conference.
Judge Valerie Figueredo issued the order on March 13, 2024. The order did not rule on the pending motion to dismiss.
The detailed version
- Akhtar v. Aggarwala · No. 1:23-cv-06585
- Figueredo
- Mar. 13, 2024
Background
Plaintiffs’ counsel requested an extension of time to file the plaintiffs’ opposition to the pending motion to dismiss. The first request did not explain the reason, but said that a separate letter would explain the basis consistently with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Counsel then filed that explanation as ECF No. 50 under seal, meaning it was not publicly viewable. The filing was viewable only to court users and the plaintiffs.
Defendant Eric Eisenberg, identified in the order as representing himself, asked the court to remove the seal and all viewing restrictions. Plaintiffs’ counsel relied broadly on HIPAA as the reason for sealing the letter.
Sealing ruling
The court held that citing HIPAA alone was not a sufficient basis for sealing the letter. The order noted that courts in the Southern District of New York have taken different approaches to access rights involving medical records protected by HIPAA. Some courts hold that there is no common-law or First Amendment right to those records, while others apply the balancing test described in Lugosch v. Pyramid Co. of Onondaga.
The court directed plaintiffs’ counsel to submit any renewed request to seal ECF No. 50 by April 5, 2024, and to make a sufficient showing under the Lugosch test. Until then, the Clerk was directed to keep ECF No. 50 under seal.
Deadlines and settlement conference
The court extended the plaintiffs’ deadline to respond to the motion to dismiss from March 9, 2024, to April 9, 2024. Defendants’ replies were due April 16, 2024. The court also scheduled a pre-settlement-conference call for April 30, 2024, to discuss the possibility of holding a settlement conference.
Judge Valerie Figueredo’s order addressed sealing, briefing deadlines, and settlement-conference scheduling. It did not decide the pending motion to dismiss.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.