COURT OF CHANCERY OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE CHRISTIAN DOUGLAS WRIGHT LEONARD L. WILLIAMS JUSTICE CENTER MAGISTRATE IN CHANCERY 500 NORTH KING STREET, SUITE 11400 WILMINGTON, DE 19801-3734
Date Submitted: March 23, 2026 Date Decided: March 30, 2026
Peter B. Ladig, Esquire David E. Ross, Esquire Rachel R. Tunney, Esquire Adam D. Gold, Esquire Bayard, P.A. Marguerite O’Brien, Esquire 600 N. King Street, Suite 400 Ross Aronstam & Moritz LLP Wilmington, DE 19801 Hercules Building 1313 N. Market Street, Suite 1001 Wilmington, DE 19801
Thomas A. Uebler, Esquire Adam J. Waskie, Esquire McCollom D’Emilio Smith & Uebler LLC 2751 Centerville Road, Suite 401 Wilmington, DE 19808
Re: In re Care One, LLC Advancement Litig., Consol. C.A. No. 2025-1286-CDW Dear Counsel: On March 6, 2026, plaintiff Androsky Lugo (“Lugo”) moved for
confidential treatment of two exhibits to the motion for summary judgment he
filed on December 16, 2025 in this consolidated advancement action
(“Motion”).1 On March 13, defendant Care One, LLC filed its opposition to the
1 Pl. Androsky Lugo’s Mot. for Confidential Treatment (“Mot.”), Dkt. 41. Consol. C.A. No. 2025-1286-CDW March 30, 2026 Page 2 of 8
Motion,2 and on March 18, Lugo filed his reply.3 Also on March 18, the court
issued a minute order noting the public availability of one of the exhibits on a
federal court docket monitoring website and asked the parties to file
supplemental memoranda addressing the impact this should have on the court’s
consideration of the motion.4 The parties filed their supplemental memoranda
on March 23,5 completing briefing on the Motion. I deny the Motion without
prejudice.
I. BACKGROUND Briefly stated, the two documents for which Lugo seeks confidential
treatment are Exhibits E and H to the Affidavit of Peter B. Ladig filed in
support of Lugo’s motion for summary judgment.6 They are the complaint
(“Complaint”) and the amended complaint (jointly with the Complaint, “New
Jersey Pleadings”) in Care One, LLC v. Straus, Case No. 25-cv-12743-JKS-
MAH (“New Jersey Action”), in the United States District Court for the District
2 Def. Care One, LLC’s Opp’n to Pl. Androsky Lugo’s Mot. for Confidential
Treatment (“Opp’n”), Dkt. 43. 3 Pl. Androsky Lugo’s Reply in Supp. of His Mot. for Confidential Treatment, Dkt.
48 (“Reply”). 4 Dkt. 49.
5 Pl. Androsky Lugo’s Suppl. Mem. Regarding His Mot. for Confidential Treatment,
Dkt. 53 (“Lugo Suppl.”); Def. Care One, LLC’s Suppl. Submission in Further Supp. of Opp’n to Pl. Androsky Lugo’s Mot. for Confidential Treatment (“Care One Suppl.”), Dkt. 54. 6 Dkt. 22. Consol. C.A. No. 2025-1286-CDW March 30, 2026 Page 3 of 8
of New Jersey (“New Jersey Court”). The New Jersey Action is the underlying
proceeding for which Senior Magistrate in Chancery Molina held Lugo and co-
plaintiff Elizabeth S. Straus are entitled to advancement from Care One.7
The New Jersey Pleadings were not filed under seal in the New Jersey
Action.8 When Lugo filed his complaint in this action on November 6, he
attached the New Jersey Pleadings as exhibits and filed them under seal.9
When he filed his motion for summary judgment on December 16, he included
the New Jersey Pleadings as exhibits to the Ladig Affidavit, but did not file
them under seal.10 Lugo says the failure to file the New Jersey Pleadings under
seal with the motion for summary judgment was inadvertent.11 This makes
sense, given that Lugo filed the New Jersey Pleadings under seal with his
complaint, but Care One doubts the assertion.12
7 See Tr. of 2-11-2026 Tele. Oral Arg’t and Final Rpt. of the Senior Mag. on Cross-
Mots. for Summ. J., Dkt. 46 at 93–94. The ruling is on exceptions to Vice Chancellor Cook. See Exceptions Reassignment Ltr., Dkt. 48. 8 See Mot. ¶ 8; Lugo Suppl. ¶ 7; see also New Jersey Action, Dkts. 1, 19.
9 Mot. ¶ 1; Reply ¶ 3; see also Lugo v. Care One, LLC, C.A. No. 2025-1287-SEM,
Dkt. 1, Exs. D, G. 10 Mot. ¶ 2; Reply ¶ 3.
11 Mot. ¶ 2; Reply ¶ 3.
12 Opp’n ¶¶ 2, 12. Consol. C.A. No. 2025-1286-CDW March 30, 2026 Page 4 of 8
According to Lugo, on February 20, 2026, Care One filed a Notice of
Dismissal Without Prejudice in the New Jersey Action.13 At the time, Lugo and
his co-party (Straus) had a pending motion to strike certain allegations in the
New Jersey Pleadings because, Lugo says, those allegations contained
scandalous or impertinent allegations against Lugo regarding criminal charges
brought against Lugo in New York and New Jersey, which had been
dismissed.14 Care One’s voluntary dismissal of the New Jersey Action
apparently terminated the New Jersey Court’s consideration of the motion to
strike, so Lugo filed a motion to seal asking the New Jersey Court to place the
New Jersey Pleadings under seal.15 The motion to seal has been fully briefed
and remains pending.16
II. ANALYSIS “The public’s right to access judicial records is considered ‘fundamental
to a democratic state’ and ‘necessary in the long run so that the public can
judge the product of the courts in a given case.’” Sequoia Presidential Yacht
Grp. LLC v. FE P’rs LLC, 2013 WL 3724946, at *2 (Del. Ch. July 15, 2013)
(quoting Horres v. Chick-fil-A, Inc., 2013 WL 1223605, at *1 (Del. Ch. Mar.
13 Mot. ¶ 4.
14 Id.
15 Id. ¶ 5.
16 Reply ¶ 8; Lugo Suppl. ¶ 7. Consol. C.A. No. 2025-1286-CDW March 30, 2026 Page 5 of 8
27, 2013)). Delaware law presumes “the public has a right of access to all
judicial proceedings and court records.” In re Oxbow Carbon LLC, 2016 WL
7323443, at *1 (Del. Ch. Dec. 15, 2016). Accordingly, our court considers
court proceedings—including papers filed on our dockets—to be public unless
the court or the Court of Chancery Rules provide otherwise. Ct. Ch. R. 5.1(a).
This heavy presumption in favor of public access means that “only
limited types of information qualify for confidential treatment in submissions to
the Court.” Sequoia, 2013 WL 3724946, at *2 (citation omitted). The
information must satisfy four criteria: (1) the information must have been
maintained confidentially; (2) the information must not be otherwise publicly
available; (3) public access to the information will cause particularized harm;
and (4) the magnitude of the harm from public access to the information
outweighs the public interest in the information. Ct. Ch. R. 5.1(b)(2)(A)–(D).
“The party seeking confidential treatment of the record must demonstrate ‘good
cause’ for such treatment.” Sequoia, 2013 WL 3724946, at *2. The fact that
“the information for which a party seeks confidential treatment may be
embarrassing or previously undisclosed does not alone warrant confidential
treatment.” Id.
Applying these principles here, I must deny the Motion. Lugo concedes
the New Jersey Pleadings are publicly available: “Lugo admits the RICO Consol. C.A. No. 2025-1286-CDW March 30, 2026 Page 6 of 8
Complaints are publicly available (for now).”17 Nor can it be seriously disputed
that the New Jersey Pleadings have not, to date, been maintained confidentially.
The New Jersey Pleadings have been publicly available on the docket in the
New Jersey Action since they were filed on July 3 and October 20, 2025. They
have been downloadable from PACER18 since then by anyone willing to pay $3
for each document.19 And the Complaint is freely and publicly available right
now on the Free Law Project’s RECAP Archive,20 and is also available through
Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI
COURT OF CHANCERY OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE CHRISTIAN DOUGLAS WRIGHT LEONARD L. WILLIAMS JUSTICE CENTER MAGISTRATE IN CHANCERY 500 NORTH KING STREET, SUITE 11400 WILMINGTON, DE 19801-3734
Date Submitted: March 23, 2026 Date Decided: March 30, 2026
Peter B. Ladig, Esquire David E. Ross, Esquire Rachel R. Tunney, Esquire Adam D. Gold, Esquire Bayard, P.A. Marguerite O’Brien, Esquire 600 N. King Street, Suite 400 Ross Aronstam & Moritz LLP Wilmington, DE 19801 Hercules Building 1313 N. Market Street, Suite 1001 Wilmington, DE 19801
Thomas A. Uebler, Esquire Adam J. Waskie, Esquire McCollom D’Emilio Smith & Uebler LLC 2751 Centerville Road, Suite 401 Wilmington, DE 19808
Re: In re Care One, LLC Advancement Litig., Consol. C.A. No. 2025-1286-CDW Dear Counsel: On March 6, 2026, plaintiff Androsky Lugo (“Lugo”) moved for
confidential treatment of two exhibits to the motion for summary judgment he
filed on December 16, 2025 in this consolidated advancement action
(“Motion”).1 On March 13, defendant Care One, LLC filed its opposition to the
1 Pl. Androsky Lugo’s Mot. for Confidential Treatment (“Mot.”), Dkt. 41. Consol. C.A. No. 2025-1286-CDW March 30, 2026 Page 2 of 8
Motion,2 and on March 18, Lugo filed his reply.3 Also on March 18, the court
issued a minute order noting the public availability of one of the exhibits on a
federal court docket monitoring website and asked the parties to file
supplemental memoranda addressing the impact this should have on the court’s
consideration of the motion.4 The parties filed their supplemental memoranda
on March 23,5 completing briefing on the Motion. I deny the Motion without
prejudice.
I. BACKGROUND Briefly stated, the two documents for which Lugo seeks confidential
treatment are Exhibits E and H to the Affidavit of Peter B. Ladig filed in
support of Lugo’s motion for summary judgment.6 They are the complaint
(“Complaint”) and the amended complaint (jointly with the Complaint, “New
Jersey Pleadings”) in Care One, LLC v. Straus, Case No. 25-cv-12743-JKS-
MAH (“New Jersey Action”), in the United States District Court for the District
2 Def. Care One, LLC’s Opp’n to Pl. Androsky Lugo’s Mot. for Confidential
Treatment (“Opp’n”), Dkt. 43. 3 Pl. Androsky Lugo’s Reply in Supp. of His Mot. for Confidential Treatment, Dkt.
48 (“Reply”). 4 Dkt. 49.
5 Pl. Androsky Lugo’s Suppl. Mem. Regarding His Mot. for Confidential Treatment,
Dkt. 53 (“Lugo Suppl.”); Def. Care One, LLC’s Suppl. Submission in Further Supp. of Opp’n to Pl. Androsky Lugo’s Mot. for Confidential Treatment (“Care One Suppl.”), Dkt. 54. 6 Dkt. 22. Consol. C.A. No. 2025-1286-CDW March 30, 2026 Page 3 of 8
of New Jersey (“New Jersey Court”). The New Jersey Action is the underlying
proceeding for which Senior Magistrate in Chancery Molina held Lugo and co-
plaintiff Elizabeth S. Straus are entitled to advancement from Care One.7
The New Jersey Pleadings were not filed under seal in the New Jersey
Action.8 When Lugo filed his complaint in this action on November 6, he
attached the New Jersey Pleadings as exhibits and filed them under seal.9
When he filed his motion for summary judgment on December 16, he included
the New Jersey Pleadings as exhibits to the Ladig Affidavit, but did not file
them under seal.10 Lugo says the failure to file the New Jersey Pleadings under
seal with the motion for summary judgment was inadvertent.11 This makes
sense, given that Lugo filed the New Jersey Pleadings under seal with his
complaint, but Care One doubts the assertion.12
7 See Tr. of 2-11-2026 Tele. Oral Arg’t and Final Rpt. of the Senior Mag. on Cross-
Mots. for Summ. J., Dkt. 46 at 93–94. The ruling is on exceptions to Vice Chancellor Cook. See Exceptions Reassignment Ltr., Dkt. 48. 8 See Mot. ¶ 8; Lugo Suppl. ¶ 7; see also New Jersey Action, Dkts. 1, 19.
9 Mot. ¶ 1; Reply ¶ 3; see also Lugo v. Care One, LLC, C.A. No. 2025-1287-SEM,
Dkt. 1, Exs. D, G. 10 Mot. ¶ 2; Reply ¶ 3.
11 Mot. ¶ 2; Reply ¶ 3.
12 Opp’n ¶¶ 2, 12. Consol. C.A. No. 2025-1286-CDW March 30, 2026 Page 4 of 8
According to Lugo, on February 20, 2026, Care One filed a Notice of
Dismissal Without Prejudice in the New Jersey Action.13 At the time, Lugo and
his co-party (Straus) had a pending motion to strike certain allegations in the
New Jersey Pleadings because, Lugo says, those allegations contained
scandalous or impertinent allegations against Lugo regarding criminal charges
brought against Lugo in New York and New Jersey, which had been
dismissed.14 Care One’s voluntary dismissal of the New Jersey Action
apparently terminated the New Jersey Court’s consideration of the motion to
strike, so Lugo filed a motion to seal asking the New Jersey Court to place the
New Jersey Pleadings under seal.15 The motion to seal has been fully briefed
and remains pending.16
II. ANALYSIS “The public’s right to access judicial records is considered ‘fundamental
to a democratic state’ and ‘necessary in the long run so that the public can
judge the product of the courts in a given case.’” Sequoia Presidential Yacht
Grp. LLC v. FE P’rs LLC, 2013 WL 3724946, at *2 (Del. Ch. July 15, 2013)
(quoting Horres v. Chick-fil-A, Inc., 2013 WL 1223605, at *1 (Del. Ch. Mar.
13 Mot. ¶ 4.
14 Id.
15 Id. ¶ 5.
16 Reply ¶ 8; Lugo Suppl. ¶ 7. Consol. C.A. No. 2025-1286-CDW March 30, 2026 Page 5 of 8
27, 2013)). Delaware law presumes “the public has a right of access to all
judicial proceedings and court records.” In re Oxbow Carbon LLC, 2016 WL
7323443, at *1 (Del. Ch. Dec. 15, 2016). Accordingly, our court considers
court proceedings—including papers filed on our dockets—to be public unless
the court or the Court of Chancery Rules provide otherwise. Ct. Ch. R. 5.1(a).
This heavy presumption in favor of public access means that “only
limited types of information qualify for confidential treatment in submissions to
the Court.” Sequoia, 2013 WL 3724946, at *2 (citation omitted). The
information must satisfy four criteria: (1) the information must have been
maintained confidentially; (2) the information must not be otherwise publicly
available; (3) public access to the information will cause particularized harm;
and (4) the magnitude of the harm from public access to the information
outweighs the public interest in the information. Ct. Ch. R. 5.1(b)(2)(A)–(D).
“The party seeking confidential treatment of the record must demonstrate ‘good
cause’ for such treatment.” Sequoia, 2013 WL 3724946, at *2. The fact that
“the information for which a party seeks confidential treatment may be
embarrassing or previously undisclosed does not alone warrant confidential
treatment.” Id.
Applying these principles here, I must deny the Motion. Lugo concedes
the New Jersey Pleadings are publicly available: “Lugo admits the RICO Consol. C.A. No. 2025-1286-CDW March 30, 2026 Page 6 of 8
Complaints are publicly available (for now).”17 Nor can it be seriously disputed
that the New Jersey Pleadings have not, to date, been maintained confidentially.
The New Jersey Pleadings have been publicly available on the docket in the
New Jersey Action since they were filed on July 3 and October 20, 2025. They
have been downloadable from PACER18 since then by anyone willing to pay $3
for each document.19 And the Complaint is freely and publicly available right
now on the Free Law Project’s RECAP Archive,20 and is also available through
an online service called PacerMonitor.21
Lugo has a motion pending in the New Jersey Court to place the New
Jersey Pleadings under seal.22 If that motion is successful, the New Jersey
Pleadings will no longer be publicly available from PACER, which may also
17 Lugo Suppl. ¶ 7.
18 PACER, which stands for Public Access to Court Electronic Records, is the
electronic case filing system used the federal courts. See https://pacer.uscourts.gov/. 19 See Frequently Asked Questions, How Much Does It Cost to Access Documents
Using PACER?, https://pacer.uscourts.gov/ (“Access to case information costs $0.10 per page . . . . The cost to access a single document is capped at $3.00[.]”). Each of the New Jersey Pleadings is over 30 pages. 20 The RECAP Archive is a free public repository of millions of federal court
documents and dockets. See https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/. The complaint in the New Jersey Action is available for free download from the RECAP Archive through two sources: CourtListener (storage.courtlistener.com) and the Internet Archive (archive.org). See https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/70702365/care-one- llc-v-straus/. 21 See Lugo Suppl. ¶ 12 n.5.
22 Mot. ¶ 5; Opp’n ¶¶ 4, 7; Reply ¶ 4. Consol. C.A. No. 2025-1286-CDW March 30, 2026 Page 7 of 8
result in the copies of the Complaint currently available from the RECAP
Archive and PacerMonitor being removed from public access,23 but this is not
guaranteed. For present purposes, the critical point is that the New Jersey
Pleadings are, definitionally, not “Confidential Information” under Court of
Chancery Rule 5.1(b)(2) right now because they are publicly accessible, so
Lugo has not established that confidential treatment of the New Jersey
Pleadings on this docket is warranted. If that changes—if the court in the New
Jersey Action places the New Jersey Pleadings under seal and the New Jersey
Pleadings are no longer publicly accessible anywhere else on the internet—
Lugo can renew the Motion, and the court will consider it then.
Denying the Motion on these grounds means I need not (and thus will
not) decide now if Lugo has satisfied the other two requirements for treating the
New Jersey Pleadings as “Confidential Information” under Rule 5.1(b)(2):
(1) whether public access to the information in the New Jersey Pleadings will
cause particularized harm; and (2) whether the magnitude of the harm from
public access to the information in the New Jersey Pleadings outweighs the
23 See Lugo Suppl. ¶ 12 (describing the removal process for sealed pleadings from the
RECAP Archive and PacerMonitor); Care One Suppl. ¶ 3 (describing the RECAP Archive’s removal process). Consol. C.A. No. 2025-1286-CDW March 30, 2026 Page 8 of 8
public interest in that information.24 My consideration of those criteria can
await a future motion for confidential treatment from Lugo, if one is filed.25
III. CONCLUSION Plaintiff Androsky Lugo’s Motion for Confidential Treatment is denied
without prejudice. This is a Report under Court of Chancery Rule 144(b)(1).
Under Court of Chancery Rule 144(c)(2)(A), exceptions to this Report are
stayed pending issuance of a final report in this case.
Very truly yours, /s/ Christian Douglas Wright Magistrate in Chancery CDW/slk
24 See Mot. ¶ 9; Opp’n ¶¶ 18–22; Reply ¶¶ 11–14; Lugo Suppl. ¶¶ 8–9.
25 Lugo also argues I must grant the Motion because otherwise the public availability
of the New Jersey Pleadings here will “sway the District of New Jersey’s decision” on his motion to seal there. See Lugo Suppl. ¶ 13. Care One does argue the public availability of the New Jersey Pleadings here is a reason the New Jersey Court should deny the motion to seal there. See Opp’n Ex. 2 at 4–5. But I have no reason to believe the New Jersey Court will be so easily swayed. The New Jersey Court should have the first opportunity to decide what to do about the New Jersey Pleadings, both as a matter of comity and because Lugo needs to resolve that motion successfully before it can even try to resolve the public availability of the Complaint from the known non-governmental sources. See Lugo Suppl. ¶ 12 (“RECAP generally removes public access to sealed documents upon receipt of a sealing order from the court.”), ¶ 12 n.5 (“Pacer[M]onitor will not remove a pleading without a sealing order from the underlying court . . . , which is exactly what Lugo seeks in New Jersey.”).