Dabiri v. Federation of States Medical Boards of the United States, Inc.

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

EASTERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK

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LUQMAN DABIRI,

Plaintiff, MEMORANDUM & ORDER

08-CV-4718(EK)

-against-

FEDERATION OF STATES MEDICAL BOARDS

OF THE UNITED STATES, INC. and

GENERAL MEDICAL COUNCIL,

Defendants.

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ERIC KOMITEE, United States District Judge:

Before the Court is Plaintiff Luqman Dabiri’s renewed

motion to seal this case in its entirety. For the reasons set

forth below, the Court denies this request, but directs the

Clerk of Court to move Plaintiff’s medical records filed on the

docket under seal.

Relevant Procedural History

Fifteen years ago, the plaintiff, a medical doctor by

trade, filed this action against Federation of States Medical

Boards of the United States, Inc. (“FSMB”), a non-profit

corporation representing medical boards in the United States,

and General Medical Council (“GMC”), a United Kingdom-based

public authority. He alleged that GMC deprived him of his right

to due process by suspending his medical license without notice

of hearing and then forwarding that suspension information to

FSMB, which included it in reports of Plaintiff’s medical

disciplinary history. As alleged in the complaint and exhibits

attached thereto, GMC’s decision to restrict Plaintiff’s license

stemmed from an unfavorable determination of his mental

competency, at the time, to practice medicine. See Compl.

¶¶ 32–35, ECF No. 1; Compl. Ex. 1, ECF No. 22. Plaintiff filed

all documents in this case publicly, and at no time while the

case was still pending did he seek to move any under seal.

Both FSMB and GMC moved to dismiss the complaint,

referring to Plaintiff’s competency determination in their

motion papers’ summary of the relevant factual allegations.

Judge Charles Sifton thereafter granted those motions on various

grounds in March 2009. See Dabiri v. Fed’n of States Med. Bds.

of U.S., Inc., No. 08-CV-4718, 2009 WL 803126, at *1 (E.D.N.Y.

Mar. 25, 2009). That opinion included a similar reference to

the circumstances of Plaintiff’s license suspension in its

recitation of the complaint’s allegations. Id. at *2.

Only recently, in June 2022, Dabiri filed a letter

request to seal the entire case. See ECF No. 29.1 The Court

denied that request with leave to renew, inviting Plaintiff to

1 This case was reassigned to me for purposes of hearing Plaintiff’s

sealing request. The Court assumes, for purposes of this Order, that it has

ancillary jurisdiction to decide the request. See Hendrickson v. United

States, 791 F.3d 354, 358 (2d Cir. 2015) (ancillary jurisdiction allows a

district court to “take actions necessary ‘to manage its proceedings,

vindicate its authority, and effectuate its decrees.’” (quoting Kokkonen v.

Guardian Life Ins. Co. of Am., 511 U.S. 375, 380 (1994))).

submit a revised motion to seal within thirty days that complies

with the applicable legal standards. ECF No. 33. Plaintiff

submitted a renewed motion, again requesting that the Court seal

the docket in its entirety. Pl. Mot., ECF No. 34-1.

Legal Standards

Both the common law and the First Amendment protect

the public’s right to access judicial documents. See Lugosch v.

Pyramid Co. of Onondaga, 435 F.3d 110, 119–20 (2d Cir. 2006).2

The “burden of demonstrating that a document submitted to a

court should be sealed rests on the party seeking such action.”

DiRussa v. Dean Witter Reynolds Inc., 121 F.3d 818, 826 (2d Cir.

1997). The Court briefly reviews the standards set out in

Lugosch, as detailed in its prior order, here.

The Second Circuit has articulated a “three-step

inquiry” for sealing documents under the common-law framework.

Mirlis v. Greer, 952 F.3d 51, 59 (2d Cir. 2020). First, a court

must determine whether the records at issue are “judicial

documents” — that is, documents “relevant to the performance of

the judicial function and useful in the judicial process” — to

which the presumptive right of access attaches. Lugosch, 435

F.3d at 119. Second, once a court concludes that such documents

2 Unless otherwise noted, when quoting judicial decisions this order

accepts all alterations and omits all citations, footnotes, and internal

quotation marks.

are judicial documents, it must determine the weight of the

presumption in favor of public access. Id. The weight of the

presumption depends on both “the role of the material at issue

in the [court’s] exercise of Article III judicial power and the

resultant value of such information to those monitoring the

federal courts.” United States v. Amodeo, 71 F.3d 1044, 1049

(2d Cir. 1995). Finally, “the court must balance competing

considerations against” that presumption. Lugosch, 435 F.3d at

120. “Such countervailing factors” may include “the privacy

interests of those resisting disclosure.” Id.

Under the First Amendment framework, as relevant here,

the presumptive right of access to judicial documents applies

when “experience and logic support making the document[s]

available to the public.” United States v. Erie County, 763

F.3d 235, 239 (2d Cir. 2014). This approach requires a court to

consider “(a) whether the documents have historically been open

to the press and general public (experience),” and “(b) whether

public access plays a significant positive role in the

functioning of the particular process in question (logic).” Id.

A party may overcome the strong presumption of access to

judicial documents only if “higher values . . . so demand.”

Lugosch, 435 F.3d at 124. These restrictions require “specific,

on-the-record findings that sealing is necessary to preserve

higher values” and the sealing order must be “narrowly tailored

to achieve that aim.” Id.

Discussion

As this Court previously advised Plaintiff, “sealing

an entire case file is a last resort.” In re Platinum &

Palladium Commodities Litig., 828 F. Supp. 2d 602, 604 (S.D.N.Y.

2011). Plaintiff has not met his burden of justifying sealing

this case in its entirety.

At the first step, sealing the case would result in

sealing numerous judicial documents — including the complaint

and its exhibits, the parties’ motion to dismiss briefing, and

Judge Sifton’s opinion dismissing the case — to which the

presumptive right of access attaches. See Bernstein v.

Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann LLP, 814 F.3d 132, 139–40

(2d Cir. 2016) (complaint); Alcon Vision, LLC v. Lens.com, No.

18-CV-0407, 2020 WL 3791865, at *6 (E.D.N.Y. July 7, 2020)

(“filings in connection with a motion to dismiss”); Moroughan v.

Cnty. of Suffolk, No. 12-CV-0512, 2021 WL 280053, at *2

(E.D.N.Y. Jan. 24, 2021) (court’s orders and written opinions).

As to the second step, Dabiri “seeks to hide the

entirety of the case from the public eye,” so the presumption of

public access “has extraordinarily substantial weight.”

Zabolotsky v. Experian, No. 19-CV-11832, 2021 WL 106416, at *2

(S.D.N.Y. Jan. 12, 2021). The individual judicial documents

noted above likewise enjoy a “particularly strong presumption of

public access.” Encyclopedia Brown Prods., Ltd. v. Home Box

Off., Inc., 26 F. Supp. 2d 606, 612 (S.D.N.Y. 1998). Judge

Sifton’s opinion is itself an “adjudication” — a “direct

exercise[] of judicial power[,] the reasoning and substantive

effect of which the public has an important interest in

scrutinizing.” Id. Similarly, the complaint and the parties’

motion to dismiss briefing, “which the Court considered and

relied upon in reaching its decision[],” both directly affected

that adjudication. Id.; Bernstein, 814 F.3d at 142–43. Thus,

the “presumption of access is at its zenith.” Bernstein, 814

F.3d at 142. That presumption, moreover, “does not dissipate

once the case is over,” as the public simply “cannot evaluate a

case that is sealed in its entirety.” Zabolotsky, 2021 WL

106416, at *2.

At the third step, as to countervailing factors,

Plaintiff argues that the docket “contains and publicizes

sensitive medical information.” Pl. Mot. 1. Courts have

“recognized [a] privacy interest in medical records.” United

States v. Sattar, 471 F. Supp. 2d 380, 387 (S.D.N.Y. 2006).

Accordingly, “[c]ourts in this Circuit routinely seal medical

records, without sealing the entire case, to protect the

plaintiff’s privacy interest in those records.” Toolasprashad

v. Toolasprashad, No. 21-CV-4672, 2021 WL 4949121, at *3

(E.D.N.Y. Oct. 25, 2021) (collecting cases). That privacy

interest in medical records, however, “is neither fundamental

nor absolute,” Sattar, 471 F. Supp. 2d at 387, and in this case,

does not overcome the strong presumption of public access to

justify the full relief that Dabiri seeks.

On the one hand, Plaintiff (who was represented by

counsel at the time) filed information relating to his medical

history on the public docket, where it has remained accessible

to the public for over thirteen years. The records’ long-term

availability in the public domain not only weighs against

sealing them. See Byfield v. New York City Dep’t of Educ.

(NYCDOE), No. 22-CV-5869, 2022 WL 3362874, at *1 (S.D.N.Y. July

29, 2022); Jin v. Choi, No. 20-CV-09129, 2021 WL 3159808, at *1

(S.D.N.Y. June 17, 2021) (Aaron, M.J.) (plaintiff’s privacy

interest “undermined by” records’ availability on the public

docket “for at least one month, and in several cases close to

four or five months”). That public availability also suggests a

certain futility in doing so. “As the Second Circuit has noted,

the Court has no ability to make private that which has already

become public.” Chigirinskiy v. Panchenkova, 319 F. Supp. 3d

718, 739 (S.D.N.Y. 2018); see Sparman v. Edwards, 325 F. Supp.

3d 317, 319 (E.D.N.Y. 2018) (“Whether to seal an opinion 20

years after its entry on the public docket is, essentially, an

academic exercise because . . . it has already been widely

circulated in the public domain.”).

On the other hand, a party arguably maintains a

privacy interest in his personal medical information — distinct

from, for example, confidential business information — even

after some degree of public disclosure. This privacy interest

continues even where a plaintiff “has put his medical condition

at issue” in a lawsuit and filed “medical records on the public

docket.” Braxton v. City of New York, No. 17-CV-00199, 2021 WL

7287625, at *7 (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 7, 2021), R & R adopted sub nom.

Braxton/Obed-Edom v. City of New York, No. 17-CV-199, 2022 WL

443816 (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 14, 2022); accord Valentini v. Grp. Health

Inc., No. 20-CV-9526, 2020 WL 7646892, at *2 (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 23,

2020) (granting defendants’ request to seal plaintiff’s own

medical records, over plaintiff’s objections, in case where she

put health information at issue).

Balancing the strong public presumption of access and

the countervailing privacy interests, the Court will seal the

medical records filed as an exhibit to the complaint, as well as

those attached to Plaintiff’s sealing requests. See ECF Nos.

22, 29, 32, and 34-4. These records contain more detailed

medical information, including examination and evaluation notes

from Plaintiff’s treating doctors. The Court will not seal

other mentions of Plaintiff’s mental competency determination

contained on the docket, including those in the parties’ motion

papers and Judge Sifton’s opinion. See, e.g., Jin, 2021 WL

3159808, at *1 (sealing plaintiff’s detailed medical records,

but not sealing other references to parties’ health information

filed publicly on the docket).

Dabiri’s representations that the case has caused him

“lack of employment, lost jobs and wages, and career

advancement,” see Pl. Mot. 1, do not justify any further sealing

of the record. A “possibility of future adverse impact on

employment,” as Plaintiff contends here, is not a “higher value

sufficient to overcome the presumption of access to judicial

documents.” Bernsten v. O’Reilly, 307 F. Supp. 3d 161, 169

(S.D.N.Y. 2018); see, e.g., Badinelli v. Tuxedo Club, No. 15-CV-

6273, 2018 WL 6411275, at *2 (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 6, 2018) (the

“interest in privacy, professional reputation, and earning

capacity” did not outweigh presumption of public access);

Alexandria Real Est. Equities, Inc. v. Fair, No. 11-CV-3694,

2011 WL 6015646, at *3 (S.D.N.Y. Nov. 30, 2011) (denying sealing

request, despite the fact that filings “may be read by future

employers who may be less likely to hire him as a result of

knowing the details of his employment history”).3

3 In his sealing request, Dabiri repeatedly refers to the medical

information at issue in this case as “incorrect” and “unproven.” See Pl.

Mot. 1–3. The Court notes, in clarification, that Judge Sifton’s opinion did

Conclusion

For the reasons set forth above, Plaintiff’s request

to seal the entire case is denied. The Clerk of Court is

directed to move under seal the documents filed at ECF Nos. 22,

29, 32, and 34-4.

SO ORDERED.

/s/ Eric Komitee__________

ERIC KOMITEE

United States District Judge

Dated: May 31, 2023

Brooklyn, New York

not rule on the accuracy of this information. Instead, that opinion and the

defendants’ briefing in relation thereto assumed the factual allegations of

Plaintiff’s complaint and its exhibits to be true, as they must at the

motion-to-dismiss stage. See Harris v. Mills, 572 F.3d 66, 71 (2d Cir.

2009). The Court likewise takes no position on the accuracy or significance

of this medical information, either at the time it was filed on the docket or

today.