United States Magistrate Judge Robert W. Lehrburger of the Southern District of New York has delivered a mixed ruling pertaining to documents submitted in a discrimination lawsuit brought by three professional basketball referees against the NBA.
The referees alleged that the NBA discriminated against them on the basis of religion by denying their requests for exemptions from the league’s COVID-19 vaccination requirements.
Specifically, the plaintiffs — Mark Ayotte, Ken Mauer, and Jason Phillips — claim the NBA violated their rights under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and New York state and city human rights laws in denying their requests for religious exemptions from the league’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
The underlying merits of the discrimination claims were not decided in this opinion. Instead, the court focused on requests made by the parties that various supporting materials be retained under seal.
Judge Lehrburger applied the Second Circuit’s established three-step framework for evaluating sealing requests. First, the court must determine whether the materials at issue qualify as “judicial documents” to which a presumption of public access applies. Second, if they are judicial documents, the court must assess the strength of that presumption. Third, the court must balance the presumption of access against any countervailing interests that legitimately justify secrecy.
At the first step, the court concluded that all of the materials submitted— including expert reports, exhibits, and supporting documents—were judicial documents as a matter of law. Because the documents were filed in connection with pending motions for summary judgment and expert exclusion, they were directly relevant to the court’s adjudication of substantive rights. As a result, each document carried a presumption of public access, even if similar materials might previously have been sealed earlier in the litigation.
In evaluating the weight of that presumption, the court emphasized that relevance to the judicial function, not whether the court ultimately relies on a particular document, governs the analysis. Given the procedural posture of the case, the presumption of access was substantial.
Judge Lehrburger sharply criticized the breadth of the parties’ sealing requests. Despite being described as “narrowly tailored,” the requests sought to seal entire expert reports and large portions of other filings that contained innocuous material such as expert credentials, summaries of publicly available information, generalized concepts, and nonspecific deposition testimony. The court noted that Second Circuit precedent forbids indiscriminate or blanket sealing and requires that any redactions be tightly limited to information that truly warrants protection.
Although the parties identified two categories of potentially sensitive information—private information of nonparties and proprietary business information—the court found that most of the material at issue did not meaningfully implicate either side. Assertions that scheduling, operational, or financial information was confidential were largely unpersuasive because the documents contained only high-level generalities or testimony reflecting witnesses’ lack of detailed knowledge. Moreover, some more specific information, such as COVID-19 protocols and the costs associated with accommodating exemption requests, went directly to the merits of the dispute, strengthening the public’s interest in disclosure.
Ultimately, the court granted the sealing request only in limited part. It permitted continued sealing or redaction of narrowly defined categories, including identifiable nonparty health information, identifiable nonparty religious beliefs, personal and work email addresses, tax forms, and specific numerical financial figures. All other material was ordered to be made public, reinforcing the judiciary’s strong commitment to transparency in cases involving significant legal and public policy issues.
Ayotte v. NBA; S.D.N.Y.; 22-CV-9666 (VSB) (RWL); 8/29/25
