Haidon v. Town of Bloomfield

• Decision Date: 23 July 2021
• Docket Number: 3:19-cv-119 (SRU)
• Citation: Haidon v. Town of Bloomfield, 552 F.Supp.3d 265 (D. Conn. 2021)
• Parties: Lauren HAIDON, Plaintiff, v. TOWN OF BLOOMFIELD, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Connecticut

552 F.Supp.3d 265

Lauren HAIDON, Plaintiff,

v.TOWN OF BLOOMFIELD, et al., Defendants.

No. 3:19-cv-119 (SRU)

United States District Court, D. Connecticut.

Signed July 23, 2021

Benjamin J. Lehberger, Dilworth IP, LLC, Trumbull, CT, Marco Cercone, Rupp Baase Pfalzgraf Cunningham LLC, Buffalo, NY, for Plaintiff.

Kristan M. Maccini, Howd & Ludorf, LLC, Hartford, CT, for Defendants.

ORDER

Stefan R. Underhill, United States District Judge

At bottom, this is a case about a custodial dispute between the plaintiff, Lauren Haidon, and her ex-husband, Matthew Couloute, Jr.As a result of the dispute, Haidon alleges that Couloute enlisted the help of a friend—defendantBrendan Danaher, a K-9 police officer in the Town of Bloomfield—to submit a fraudulent arrest warrant application against Haidon for Custodial Interference in the First Degree.A judge signed the arrest warrant, and Haidon was forced to turn herself in to authorities.

Haidon later sued the Town of Bloomfield, Danaher, three supervisors in the Bloomfield Police Department, and several unidentified Bloomfield Police Officers.I granted in part the defendants’ motion to dismiss.SeeMin. Entry, Doc. No. 43.Now, Danaher is the only defendant remaining in this action.SeeAm. Compl., Doc. No. 45, at ¶¶ 59–120(asserting claims for malicious prosecution, false arrest, violation of the right to intimate association, and abuse of process).

Currently, this case is in discovery, which has been contentious.¹Recently, plaintiff's counsel took the depositions of defendant Danaher and the three supervisory officers who were formerly defendants(together, the "Movants").Apparently, at each of those depositions, defense counsel requested that plaintiff's counsel agree that the transcripts and recordings of those depositions would not be disseminated to third parties.SeeMem. in Supp. Movants’ Mot. for Protective Order ("Movants’ Mot."), Doc.No. 85-1, at 2.Plaintiff's counsel refused to make that stipulation.Thus, the Movants made a motion for a protective order pursuant to Rule 26(c) that would "limit[ ] the use of any video or audio recording and/or transcripts of the depositions of the [Movants] to the prosecution and defense of this matter."Id. at 7.Subsequently, Haidon filed an opposition, which was also styled as a cross-motion to strike a certain reference to Haidon in the Movants’ motion.SeeHaidon's Opp'n/Mot. to Strike("Haidon's Opp'n"), Doc.No. 91-3.²For the following reasons, the Movants’ motion for a protective order is granted , and Haidon's motion to strike is denied without prejudice .

I.Relevant Law

A.Three Sources of Law: First Amendment, Common Law, and Rule 26(c)

The First Amendment provides a qualified right of public access to criminal and civil trials.SeeRichmond Newspapers, Inc. v. Virginia , 448 U.S. 555, 580, 100 S.Ct. 2814, 65 L.Ed.2d 973(1980)(criminal trials);Westmoreland v. Columbia Broad. Sys., Inc. , 752 F.2d 16, 23(2d Cir.1984)(civil trials).The First Amendment also provides a qualified right of public access to various other judicial proceedings in both criminal and civil cases, such as voir dire , pretrial suppression hearings, bail hearings, and hearings before certain administrative forums.SeeNew York Civil Liberties Union v. New York City Transit Auth. , 684 F.3d 286, 297–98(2d Cir.2012)(citing cases).

Both the First Amendment³ and the common law⁴ also provide a presumptive right of public access to "judicial documents."A "judicial document" is an item filed with the court that is "relevant to the performance of the judicial function and useful in the judicial process."United States v. Amodeo , 44 F.3d 141, 145(2d Cir.1995)(" Amodeo I "). "Such documents are presumptively public so that the federal courts have a measure of accountability and so that the public may have confidence in the administration of justice."Bernstein v. Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann LLP , 814 F.3d 132, 139(2d Cir.2016)(quotingUnited States v. Amodeo , 71 F.3d 1044, 1048(2d Cir.1995)(" Amodeo II "))(cleaned up).

At issue here are deposition transcripts and recordings.I have not yet seen or relied on any portion of those transcripts and recordings.The relevant transcripts and recordings have not been submitted in connection with the instant (or any other) motion.Thus, the deposition transcripts and recordings at issue here are not "judicial documents."SeeS.E.C. v. TheStreet.com , 273 F.3d 222, 233(2d Cir.2001)(holding that "deposition discovery material[s]" are not "judicial documents" because they are "documents that play no role in the performance of Article III functions")(cleaned up).

Rule 26(c) governs a district court's decision whether to issue a protective order regarding materials that are not "judicial documents."SeeBurgess v. Town of Wallingford , 2012 WL 4344194, at *9(D. Conn.Sept. 21, 2012)("When the materials in question are deemed non judicial, then there is no presumption of public access, and the movant need only make a baseline showing of good cause in order to justify the imposition of a protective order.")(cleaned up).Rule 26(c) reads:

A party or any person from whom discovery is sought may move for a protective order in the court where the action is pending ....The court may, for good cause, issue an order to protect a party or person from annoyance, embarrassment, oppression, or undue burden or expense ....

Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(c)(1)."The grant and nature of protection is singularly within the discretion of the district court and may be reversed only on a clear showing of abuse of discretion."Dove v. Atl. Capital Corp. , 963 F.2d 15, 19(2d Cir.1992)(cleaned up).

B.Assessing "Good Cause" Under Rule 26(c)

At least in this Circuit, district courts have not fully settled on a test for evaluating what may amount to "good cause" under Rule 26(c).SeeSchoolcraft v. City of New York , 2013 WL 4534913, at *3(S.D.N.Y.Aug. 27, 2013)(describing "a split within the district courts of this Circuit as to the showing necessary to establish that good cause exists")."Some courts have held that the party opposing disclosure must make a particular and specific demonstration of fact showing that disclosure would result in an injury sufficiently serious to warrant protection, and thus broad allegations of harm unsubstantiated by specific examples or articulated reasoning fail to satisfy the test."Id.(citingIn re Parmalat Sec. Litig. , 258 F.R.D. 236, 244(S.D.N.Y.2009) )."Other courts, however, have dispensed with the specificity requirement, only demanding that the moving party show good cause."Id.(citingTopo v. Dhir , 210 F.R.D. 76, 77(S.D.N.Y.2002) )(cleaned up).⁵So far as I am aware, the Second Circuit has not yet weighed in on the issue.⁶

In my view, at least with respect to deposition transcripts and recordings, there will very frequently (if not almost always) be "good cause" to grant a party's request for a protective order seeking to limit the use of those materials to the litigation of the case at hand.To be sure, in certain instances, "good cause" will not exist.Those situations might include instances in which the public interest in the case is large, or when the deposition testimony at issue may be particularly important in other litigation.My view of Rule 26(c) ’s good cause standard is informed by the purpose of the federal discovery regime, the language and structure of the Federal Rules, and case law.

Before the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure were enacted in 1938, "the availability of discovery ... was minimal."Paul V. Niemeyer, Revisiting the 1938 Rules Experiment , 71 WASH & LEEL. REV . 2157, 2161(Fall 2014);see alsoHickman v. Taylor , 329 U.S. 495, 500–01, 67 S.Ct. 385, 91 L.Ed. 451(1947)(noting that, before enactment of the Federal Rules, "[i]nquiry into the issues and the facts before trial was narrowly confined and was often cumbersome in method").That status quo reflected the reality that pretrial discovery, including depositions, "were not open to the public at common law."Seattle Times Co. v. Rhinehart , 467 U.S. 20, 33, 104 S.Ct. 2199, 81 L.Ed.2d 17(1984);see alsoGannett Co., Inc. v. DePasquale , 443 U.S. 368, 389, 99 S.Ct. 2898, 61 L.Ed.2d 608(1979)("Under English common law, the public had no right to attend pretrial proceedings.");Bond v. Utreras , 585 F.3d 1061, 1074(7th Cir.2009)("At common law, pretrial proceedings were closed to the public.");Times Newspapers Ltd. (Of Great Britain) v. McDonnell Douglas Corp. , 387 F. Supp. 189, 194–97(C.D. Cal.1974)(describing Founding-era statutes and cases that demonstrated importance of "the privacy of depositions and the sealing of them").

The enactment of the Federal Rules in 1938 revolutionized discovery by broadening its scope.Under the Federal Rules, parties may "obtain discovery regarding any nonprivileged matter that is relevant to any party's claim or defense and proportional to the needs of the case."Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1);see also8 Charles Alan Wright & Arthur R. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure§ 2001 (3d ed.)(updated June 2021)("The scope of discovery was broadened and the restrictions imposed upon it were directed chiefly at the use of, rather than the acquisition of, the information discovered.").On top of the Federal Rules’ broad discovery provisions, the Supreme Court has made clear that courts must broadly interpret those provisions.SeeHickman , 329 U.S. at 507, 67 S.Ct. 385(instructing that "the deposition-discovery rules," in particular, "are to be accorded a broad and liberal treatment").In practice, then, the universe of potential discovery in any given case is vast.

Not only is the universe vast—it is intentionally overbroad.For instance, testimony elicited at a deposition will often be entirely irrelevant to a lawsuit.SeeFed. R. Civ. P. 30(c)(2)("An objection at the time of the examination ... must be noted on the record, but the...