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Case 1:20-cr-00330-PAE Document 311-4 Filed 07/02/21 Page 15 of 27
To Be Filed Under Seal
Order itself facilitated or furthered criminal activity; and the record contains no evidence of bad
faith.
The second way in which a protective order might be “improvidently granted” is if the
presiding judge did not require the moving party to show “good cause” for entering an order that
permitted documents to be filed with the court under seal. It was long the law that the parties
needed to make a document-by-document showing of good cause whenever discovery materials
were filed with the court under seal. Jn re Agent Orange Prod. Liab, Litig., 821 F.2d 139, 148
(2d Cir. 1987) (Agent Orange).
In recent years, however, the Second Circuit has relaxed the Rule 26(c) “good cause”
showing for discovery materials that are never filed with the court, in light of changes to the
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. TheStreet.Com, 273 F.3d at 233 n.11. The new, more lax
standard recognizes that, “Without an ability to restrict public dissemination of certain discovery
materials that are never introduced at trial, litigants would be subject to needless annoyance,
embarrassment, oppression, or undue burden or expense.” Iridium India Telecom Ltd. v.
Motorola, Inc., 165 F. App’x 878, 881 (2d Cir. 2005) (summary order) (emphasis added)
(quoting TheStreet.Com, 273 F.3d at 229).
As a result, the “good cause” showing necessary for entry of a blanket pretrial protective
order like the one entered in Giuffre is not onerous. Dorsett v. Cty. of Nassau, 289 F.R.D. 54, 67
(E.D.N.Y. 2012). “[W]here “a protective order (1) is entered on a showing of good cause as
required by Rule 26(c), (2) is limited to the context of pretrial civil discovery, and (3) does not
restrict the dissemination of the information if gained from other sources,” it is not improvidently
granted. Jd. (quoting Seattle Times Co. v. Rhinehart, 467 U.S. 20, 37 (1984)); see also
FragranceNet.com, Inc. v. FragranceX.com, Inc., No. 06-cv-2225, 2010 WL 11606632, at *4
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Document Details
| Filename | DOJ-OGR-00004938.jpg |
| File Size | 676.2 KB |
| OCR Confidence | 92.6% |
| Has Readable Text | Yes |
| Text Length | 2,101 characters |
| Indexed | 2026-02-03 16:54:48.536226 |