Lawyers involved in the class action sex discrimination case against Fairfield, Conn.-based General Electric in 2007 would rather you not read passages from various filings.

After all, the plaintiffs’ firm, Sanford, Wittels & Heisler in Washington, D.C., took the time and effort to black out reams of pages in numerous briefs to make them inaccessible to the public — or so they thought.