CDBD Holdings, Inc. v. Slavutsky
- Barbara Moses
- 1:23-cv-00071
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In CDBD Holdings v. Slavutsky, Magistrate Judge Moses partly granted CDBD’s sealing request, keeping some documents sealed but requiring redacted versions of others.
CDBD Holdings, Inc.; Elizabeth Slavutsky; Slavutsky’s mother; and the parties connected to the settlement documents and bankruptcy-court proceeding.
What happened
CDBD Holdings asked the court to keep several settlement-related documents sealed after seeking to stop Elizabeth Slavutsky from sending a settlement payment to her mother. CDBD said the documents and payment information were confidential.
The court ruled that settlement amounts and certain payment details could remain redacted because they were not relevant to the dispute and involved legitimate privacy interests. It found that CDBD had not shown why the documents needed to remain completely sealed, except for payment instructions containing Slavutsky’s mother’s confidential banking information.
Magistrate Judge Moses granted CDBD’s sealing motion in part. The payment instructions and unredacted versions of the other documents would remain sealed, but CDBD had to file redacted public versions by April 3, 2024, using no more extensive redactions than those already used in the bankruptcy court.
The detailed version
- CDBD Holdings, Inc. v. Slavutsky · No. 1:23-cv-00071
- Barbara Moses
- Mar. 26, 2024
Background
CDBD moved for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction against Elizabeth Slavutsky. CDBD sought to prevent Slavutsky from sending her mother a settlement payment that Slavutsky was due to receive under an agreement resolving a claim against Seyfarth Shaw, LLP in a bankruptcy-court proceeding. CDBD asserted that Slavutsky had assigned CDBD all interest in the claim and its proceeds.
CDBD told the court that the settlement-payment amount was confidential. The court directed CDBD to file the settlement agreement under seal and to explain why it needed to be sealed from the parties as well as the public. CDBD then filed the Slavutsky Settlement Agreement, a related side letter, another settlement agreement involving the bankruptcy estate’s liquidating trustee, and payment instructions directing an escrow agent to pay Slavutsky’s mother.
The three settlement-related documents other than the payment instructions had previously been filed publicly in the bankruptcy court with limited redactions. Those redactions concealed settlement amounts and certain payment-related details. The court had earlier denied CDBD’s request for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction; this order addressed only the sealing request.
Sealing ruling
The court concluded that the settlement amounts and certain payment-related details did not need to be public because they were not relevant to the parties’ legal dispute and implicated legitimate privacy interests. But CDBD did not explain why the documents as a whole needed to remain sealed instead of being filed in redacted form.
The court found an exception for the Disbursement Instructions because they revealed Slavutsky’s mother’s confidential banking information. Those instructions were to remain under seal.
Disposition
Magistrate Judge Barbara Moses granted CDBD’s sealing motion in part. The Disbursement Instructions and the unredacted versions of the other documents filed at Docket 75 and Docket 76 were to remain under seal. No later than April 3, 2024, CDBD had to file public, redacted versions of the Slavutsky Settlement Agreement, the Side Letter, and the Blue Dog Settlement Agreement. The redactions could be no more extensive than the redactions already applied to those documents in the bankruptcy court. The clerk was directed to terminate the sealing motion at Docket 74.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.