Boffa v. Banks
- Analisa Torres
- 1:23-cv-07596
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Boffa v. Banks, Judge Torres granted sealing of the certified administrative record because it contains A.M.’s confidential health and education information.
A.M., the minor child on whose behalf the action is brought, whose confidential health and educational information is in the record; public access to that record is restricted.
What happened
Boffa v. Banks involves the plaintiffs’ request to file the certified administrative record under seal. The record concerns A.M., a minor, and includes information about her health, disabilities, and education.
The plaintiffs argued that this information is confidential and personally identifiable. They said the record is more than 2,600 pages and that redacting the information would be overly burdensome and would make important materials, including A.M.’s individualized education plan, difficult to understand. The defendants did not object to sealing the record.
Judge Analisa Torres granted the request. She found that the confidential health and educational information justified sealing the record despite the general presumption that court filings should be publicly accessible. The Clerk of Court was directed to terminate the motion at ECF No. 34.
The detailed version
- Boffa v. Banks · No. 1:23-cv-07596
- Analisa Torres
- Apr. 15, 2024
Background
The plaintiffs asked to file the certified administrative record under seal. The plaintiffs stated that they had filed the record under seal while seeking permission to do so, and that the defendants did not object.
Basis for Sealing
The record contains confidential and personally identifiable information about A.M., a minor, including sensitive information about her health, disabilities, and education. The plaintiffs relied on federal confidentiality protections for children with disabilities and their parents, including 20 U.S.C. §§ 1415(h)(4) and 1417(c).
The plaintiffs also argued that sealing was narrowly tailored to protect A.M.’s privacy. The record is more than 2,600 pages and contains extensive confidential information. According to the request, redacting the information would be overly burdensome and could make materials such as A.M.’s individualized education plan unintelligible or unusable for evaluating the case.
Ruling
The court granted the request to file the certified administrative record under seal. Judge Torres found that the interests in protecting A.M.’s confidential health and educational information outweighed the presumption of public access to court records. The Clerk of Court was directed to terminate the motion at ECF No. 34.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.