Kasturi Haldar v. University of Notre Dame du Lac, et al.

Summary

The court interprets provisions of a stipulated protective order in a Title VII action brought by a tenured University of Notre Dame professor. It holds that the provisions do not broadly protect entire employment- or grievance-related documents, but may protect portions containing the identity and personal information of nonparty participants. The court favors targeted redactions over complete sealing, while declining to order redacted versions of certain documents based on the law of the case doctrine.

Holdings

1. Section II(A)(3) protects personnel or employment records belonging to a person who is not a party; documents concerning Haldar's own employment situation do not become nonparty personnel records merely because they mention nonparties.
2. Section II(A)(5) protects only portions of documents concerning the identity and personal information of specified nonparties, not entire documents in the listed categories.
3. The protective order supported targeted redaction of nonparty identifying and personal information, but not complete sealing of the faculty grievance materials or OIE investigation report solely because those documents arose from confidential processes.
4. Defendants failed to establish that the SAM.gov application was maintained as confidential or that good cause supported sealing it in full; only qualifying nonparty identifying information could be protected under the protective order.
5. The court declined to reconsider its earlier interlocutory sealing orders because the parties did not show an appropriate basis under Rule 54(b), and the law-of-the-case doctrine supported retaining documents that had materially informed prior decisions.

Questions Presented

1. Whether Sections II(A)(3) and II(A)(5) of the stipulated protective order required the disputed documents to remain confidential or under seal.
2. Whether Section II(A)(3) protects documents merely mentioning nonparties or instead only personnel or employment records belonging to nonparties.
3. Whether Section II(A)(5) protects entire documents or only portions concerning the identity and personal information of specified nonparties.
4. Whether faculty grievance materials and the Office of Institutional Equity investigation report should be redacted rather than sealed in their entirety.
5. Whether the court should reconsider earlier interlocutory sealing orders under Rule 54(b) and the law-of-the-case doctrine.
6. Whether the SAM.gov application satisfied the protective order's confidentiality requirements and whether defendants established good cause for continued sealing.

Disposition

other