Marcelletti

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

WESTERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK

___________________________________

JOHN MARCELLETTI, on behalf of

himself and all others similarly situated,

Plaintiff, DECISION AND ORDER

v.

6:23-CV-06211 EAW

GEICO GENERAL INSURANCE

COMPANY,

Defendant.

____________________________________

INTRODUCTION

Plaintiff John Marcelletti (“Plaintiff”) commenced this putative class action against

defendant GEICO General Insurance Company (“GEICO” or “Defendant”), asserting a

claim for breach of contract based on Defendant’s failure to pay sales tax for total loss

vehicles that are leased. (Dkt. 1).

Presently before the Court are four motions to seal filed by Defendant: (1) an April

25, 2025 motion to seal information filed in connection with Plaintiff’s emergency motion

to enforce the third amended scheduling order (Dkt. 123); (2) a May 9, 2025 motion to seal

information contained in Defendant’s supplement to its opposition to Plaintiff’s emergency

motion to enforce the third amended scheduling order (Dkt. 131); (3) a May 22, 2025

motion to seal information contained in Plaintiff’s reply in support of his emergency

motion to enforce the third amended scheduling order (Dkt. 137); and (4) a June 13, 2025

motion to seal information contained in Plaintiff’s opposition to Defendant’s May 22, 2025

motion to seal (Dkt. 149). Plaintiff only filed opposition to the latter two motions. (See

Dkt. 142; Dkt. 160).

For the reasons that follow, the Court denies Defendant’s motions.

BACKGROUND

Plaintiff commenced this action on April 17, 2023. (Dkt. 1). Defendant filed a

motion to dismiss (Dkt. 12), which was denied by the Court on March 31, 2024 (Dkt. 23).

On March 27, 2024, Defendant filed an answer. (Dkt. 26).

The case was referred to a magistrate judge for supervision of discovery and on May

8, 2025, a scheduling order was issued. (Dkt. 35). The magistrate judge entered an

amended scheduling order on October 16, 2024 (Dkt. 58), and a third amended scheduling

order was entered by the undersigned on March 5, 2025 (Dkt. 113). The third amended

scheduling order provides for the parties to bundle the materials filed in connection with

Plaintiff’s amended motion for class certification and any motions to limit or exclude

witnesses, as well as the response and reply to such motions. (Id. at ¶¶ 2, 4). It also

provides that if Plaintiff submits a declaration or report of any expert or summary

witness(es) in support of his amended motion for class certification, Defendant is given the

opportunity to depose those witnesses. (Id. at ¶ 2).

On April 24, 2025, Plaintiff filed an emergency motion to enforce the third amended

scheduling order. (Dkt. 117). In it, Plaintiff moved to preclude Defendant from serving

deposition and document subpoenas upon Ruairi McDonnell and Alex Couch, attorneys at

Plaintiff’s counsels’ law firms, arguing that such discovery was irrelevant and unnecessary.

(Dkt. 118 at 1). On May 21, 2025, the Court granted Plaintiff’s motion and precluded

Defendant from taking the depositions of attorneys McDonnell and Couch. (Dkt. 136).

The Court also directed the parties to file motions to seal for any information that was

redacted in the filings relating to the emergency motion. (Id.).

DISCUSSION

“In considering a motion to seal, the court undertakes a three-part analysis. First,

the court must determine whether the document is in fact a judicial document. . . . Second,

once the Court finds that the document is a judicial document, the court must determine

the weight of the presumption that attaches. . . . Third, once the Court has determined the

weight to accord the presumption of public access, it must determine whether competing

considerations outweigh the presumption.” Spectrum Dynamics Med. Ltd. v. Gen. Elec.

Co., No. 18CV11386(VSB)(KHP), 2023 WL 7126251, at *1 (S.D.N.Y. Oct. 30, 2023)

(quotations and citations omitted). To overcome the presumption of public access to

judicial documents, the Court must make “specific, on-the-record findings that sealing is

necessary to preserve higher values” and any sealing order must be “narrowly tailored to

achieve that aim.” Lugosch v. Pyramid Co. of Onondaga, 435 F.3d 110, 124 (2d Cir. 2006).

As the movant, the burden is on Defendant to demonstrate that sealing is warranted.

DiRussa v. Dean Witter Reynolds Inc., 121 F.3d 818, 826 (2d Cir. 1997) (“The burden of

demonstrating that a document submitted to a court should be sealed rests on the party

seeking such action.”).

Because the information sought to be sealed was submitted in connection with a

motion raising a discovery dispute and was pertinent to the Court’s determination of that

motion, the Court rejects Defendant’s argument that the information does not constitute

judicial documents entitling it to any presumption of public access. While documents and

exhibits solely exchanged during discovery may fall outside of material ordinarily

considered judicial documents, “letter motions, briefs, and declarations to which such

exhibits are attached ‘may be judicial documents to which the presumption of public access

may apply.’” Authors Guild v. OpenAI Inc., No. 23-CV-10211 (SHS) (OTW), 2025 WL

66500, at *2 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 10, 2025) (quoting Uni-Systems, LLC v. U.S. Tennis Ass’n, Inc.,

17-CV-147 (KAM) (CLP), 2020 WL 8266015, at *9 (E.D.N.Y. July 6, 2020)); see also

Brown v. Maxwell, 929 F.3d 41, 50 (2d Cir. 2019) (documents “submitted in connection

with, and relevant to, [ ] judicial decision-making [on motions to compel, quash, and

exclude deposition testimony] are subject to at least some presumption of public access”).

“This, however, ‘does not necessarily mean that those documents meet the higher threshold

imposed by the First Amendment with respect to judicial documents.’” Samsung Elecs.

Co. v. Microchip Tech. Inc., No. 1:24-MC-00269 (GHW), 2024 WL 4169353, at *3

(S.D.N.Y. Sept. 12, 2024) (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Kewazinga Corp. v.

Microsoft Corp., No. 18-CV-04500 (GHW), 2021 WL 1222122, at *7 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 31,

2021)). “[M]aterials submitted in connection with non-dispositive motions, including

discovery motions, are entitled to a weaker but ‘still substantial’ presumption of public

access.” Disability Rts. Connecticut, Inc. v. Connecticut Dep’t of Correction, No. 3:21-CV-

146(KAD), 2024 WL 3963782, at *7 (D. Conn. Aug. 28, 2024) (quoting In re Arida, LLC,

No. 19-MC-522 (PKC), 2020 WL 8513844, at *1 (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 23, 2020)); see also

Conservation L. Found., Inc. v. Shell Oil Co., No. 3:21-CV-00933 (JAM), 2023 WL

5567614, at *2 (D. Conn. May 16, 2023) (“When the document was placed before the court

as an exhibit to a discovery motion, the presumption of access typically ‘has only modest

weight[.]’” (citation and quotation omitted)). The materials at issue on Defendant’s

pending motions to seal consist of briefs, declarations, and portions of deposition

transcripts filed in connection with and relied upon by the Court in resolving Plaintiff’s

emergency motion to enforce the scheduling order. These materials cannot be considered

documents merely exchanged by the parties during discovery or wholly tangential to the

matters at issue on the discovery motion. Accordingly, at the very least, a presumption of

access applies.

Having concluded that the information and exhibits are judicial documents entitled

to a presumption of public access, the Court considers whether the presumption is

outweighed for the reasons advanced by Defendant. The Court concludes that Defendant

has not established that there are compelling reasons to maintain the information under

seal.

Notably, while relevant, the fact that any of the information was subject to protection

under a confidentiality protective order entered in this matter does not alone justify granting

the motions to seal. See Uni-Sys., LLC. v. United States Tennis Ass’n, Inc., No.

17CV147(KAM)(CLP), 2020 WL 8266015, at *8 (E.D.N.Y. July 6, 2020) (“However, this

Court has previously observed that while ‘a protective order may provide guidance to the

parties regarding what documents it might be appropriate to seal and how such documents

should be presented to the Court, the decision to allow documents to be filed under seal in

connection with motions and court proceedings is a wholly separate inquiry governed by a

different standard than whether to maintain documents disclosed in discovery in

confidence.’” (quoting Johnson v. Federal Bureau of Prisons, No. 16 CV 3919, 2017 WL

5197143, at *3 (E.D.N.Y. Nov. 9, 2017))); see also Loma Linda Univ. v. Smarter Alloys,

Inc., No. 19-CV-607-LJV-MJR, 2024 WL 4932525, at *2 (W.D.N.Y. Dec. 2, 2024) (“[T]he

fact that a document was marked as confidential during discovery does not mean that it

should be sealed when submitted in connection with a dispositive motion.”); Under Seal v.

Under Seal, 273 F. Supp. 3d 460, 471 (S.D.N.Y. 2017) (“[C]ourts in this district have

repeatedly found that the preservation of such bargained-for confidentiality does not

overcome the presumption of access to judicial documents.”). Nor does the fact that

Plaintiff did not oppose two of the four motions direct a finding that the unopposed motions

be granted. The Court’s obligation to provide public access to judicial documents operates

independently from the parties’ positions on whether the matters should be sealed. See

Cantinieri v. Verisk Analytics, Inc., No. 21CV6911(NJC)(JMW), 2024 WL 759317, at *2

(E.D.N.Y. Feb. 23, 2024) (“Although the parties are moving jointly to seal these documents

. . . and despite the existence of a court-approved protective order allowing the parties to

designate materials as confidential and to request permission to file such documents under

seal . . . this Court must—given the common law right of public access to judicial

documents firmly rooted in our nation’s history—ensure that the requested sealing is

narrowly tailored and ‘is necessary to preserve higher values’ above the public’s right to

transparency.” (quoting Lugosch, 435 F.3d at 119, 124)).

Put simply, Defendant has not met its burden of demonstrating with specific and

particular facts that it will suffer competitive harm if the alleged confidential business

information at issue is disclosed. The information at issue generally relates to data that

Defendant tracks related to total loss claims, including the precise number of certain types

of claims during a particular time period, but the arguments advanced by Defendant with

respect to the confidentiality of this information are too conclusory to overcome even a

modest presumption of public access. Indeed, they are the same exact arguments that

Defendant has asserted in connection with other motions to seal other information in this

case and which have been uniformly rejected as being conclusory. (See Dkt. 159 (denying

motion to seal at Dkt. 51); Dkt. 175 (denying motions to seal at Dkt. 154; Dkt. 165; Dkt.

170 (“This is further underscored by the fact that GEICO General’s papers in support of its

motions are virtually identical to those filed in support of its previous motion to seal, which

involved entirely different documents and categories of information, and which the Court

denied on similar grounds.”))).

In sum, given the lack of support provided for the relief sought, Defendant’s motions

to seal are denied. Within 14 days of entry of this Decision and Order, the parties must file

unredacted versions of the documents at issue on the docket.

CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, Defendant’s motions to seal (Dkt. 123; Dkt. 131; Dkt.

137; Dkt. 149) are denied.

SO ORDERED.

LIZABETHA. WOLFORD

Chief Judge

United States District Court

Dated: November 3, 2025

Rochester, New York

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