Fairstein v. Netflix, Inc.
- P. Castel
- 1:20-cv-08042
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 6
In Fairstein v. Netflix, Judge Castel granted the remaining sealing motions and terminated three voluntarily withdrawn motions.
Linda Fairstein, Netflix Inc., Ava DuVernay, Attica Locke, non-party Penguin Random House LLC, and other non-parties whose information appeared in the filings.
What happened
In Fairstein v. Netflix, Inc., seven motions asked the court to keep certain exhibits and information sealed or redacted. Three motions were voluntarily withdrawn.
The court found that the remaining materials involved non-parties’ privacy interests, confidential publishing-business information, or information already covered by an earlier sealing order. It concluded that these interests outweighed the public’s access to the materials.
Judge Castel granted the four remaining sealing motions and directed the clerk to terminate them. The clerk was also directed to terminate the three withdrawn motions.
The detailed version
- Fairstein v. Netflix, Inc. · No. 1:20-cv-08042
- P. Castel
- May 21, 2024
Background
The court considered seven motions concerning sealing and redaction of filings. The parties voluntarily withdrew the motions at ECF 238, 380, and 385, and the court directed that those motions be terminated. The remaining motions concerned exhibits filed in connection with motions in limine, which are requests addressing evidentiary issues before trial.
Legal standard
The court applied a three-step test: whether a filing is a judicial document, the strength of the public-access presumption, and whether countervailing interests justify restricting access. The court explained that filings connected to motions in limine generally receive a lower public-access presumption than materials filed with dispositive motions or introduced at trial. Privacy interests of non-parties and protection of confidential business information may outweigh that presumption.
Rulings
The court granted Penguin Random House LLC’s motion at ECF 375. Penguin sought continued sealing of a letter agreement with Linda Fairstein concerning unpaid advances for future books that Penguin chose not to publish. The court found that disclosure could cause competitive harm in the publishing industry and affect future negotiations with authors. It also approved continued sealing and redaction of filings referring to the agreement’s terms.
The court granted Fairstein’s motion at ECF 258. That motion sought to apply the court’s September 21, 2023 sealing order to later filings and to maintain protection for information from the letter agreement.
The court granted Fairstein’s motion at ECF 271 to maintain redactions of a non-party’s contact information and portions of personal emails. It found that the non-party’s privacy interests outweighed the public-access presumption.
The court granted defendants’ motion at ECF 279. The motion covered information from the letter agreement, names and contact information in two email chains produced by Vassar College concerning alumni complaints about Fairstein’s position on the school’s board of trustees, and an agreement between Ava DuVernay and Storybuilders, LLC. The court allowed the Storybuilders agreement to remain under seal for the reasons given in the September 2023 order.
Disposition
The court stated that the three withdrawn motions were terminated and that the remaining motions to seal—ECF 258, 271, 279, and 375—were granted. Judge P. Castel directed the clerk to terminate the motions.
Read the full 6-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.