Application by defendants to redact names of staff members
Whether names should remain confidential due to concerns of those staff members being identified to the plaintiff
Quick Take
1A party may redact names from discovered documents where confidentiality and public interest in protecting individuals' safety outweigh the opposing party's need for the information, provided the redacted material is not required for the attainment of justice between the parties.
2Where a person's identity is material to the allegations pleaded — particularly where the party seeks to join that person as a defendant — justice demands that the identity not be redacted, but the Harman undertaking restricts use of that information to the proceeding only.
3Pseudonyms (e.g. 'nurse 1') should be adopted in redacted documents to enable parties and experts to distinguish between different individuals without revealing identities.
