American Northwest Distributors Inc v. Four Roses Distillery LLC

• Court: District Court, W.D. Washington
• Decided: June 26, 2024
• Docket: 2:22-cv-01265
• Status: Unknown

Opinion

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4 5 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 6 WESTERN DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON AT TACOMA 7 AMERICAN NORTHWEST Case No. 2:22-cv-01265-TMC 8 DISTRIBUTORS INC., ORDER GRANTING MOTIONS TO SEAL 9 Plaintiff, 10 v. 11 FOUR ROSES DISTILLERY LLC, 12 Defendant. 13

14 I. INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND 15 Before the Court are the parties’ stipulated motion to seal (Dkt. 85) and Defendant Four 16 Roses Distillery LLC’s unopposed motion to seal. Dkt. 94. 17 The documents at issue are unredacted versions of: 18 (1) Exhibit D (containing Plaintiff American Northwest Distributors Inc.’s 19 correspondence and product purchasing information) (Dkt. 83-1) to the 20 Declaration of Anton Fedechkin Wright in support of American Northwest’s 21 Motion for Partial Summary Judgment, Dkt. 81; 22 (2) Exhibit E (containing product purchase order information) (Dkt. 82-1), Exhibit F 23 (an expert report by Rebekah A. Smith analyzing the parties’ commercial and 24 1 financial information) (Dkt. 82-2), and Exhibit G (an expert report by Neil J. 2 Beaton analyzing the parties’ commercial and financial information) (Dkt. 82-3) 3 to the Declaration of Bryan C. Graff in support of American Northwest’s Motion

4 for Partial Summary Judgment, Dkt. 80; 5 (3) Exhibit O (American Northwest’s financial aging spreadsheets) (see Dkt. 77-15), 6 Exhibit JJ (an expert rebuttal report by Neal J. Beaton) (Dkt. 77-36), Exhibit MM 7 (an expert rebuttal report by Rebekah A. Smith) (see Dkt. 77-39), and Exhibit PP 8 (an expert report by Neil J. Beaton) (see Dkt. 77-42) to the Declaration of Anne 9 Dorshimer in support of Four Roses’ Motion for Summary Judgment and 10 Daubert motion, Dkt. 77; and 11 (4) Exhibit B (transcript excerpts from the deposition of David Steiner) (Dkt. 92) and 12 Exhibit D (American Northwest’s financial aging spreadsheets) (Dkt. 93) to the

13 Declaration of Alissa Harris in support of Four Roses’ Response to American 14 Northwest’s Motion for Partial Summary Judgment, Dkt. 91. 15 II. DISCUSSION A court considering a sealing request starts with “a strong presumption in favor of access 16 to court records.” Foltz v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 331 F.3d 1122, 1135 (9th Cir. 2003). 17 A party seeking to overcome this presumption and seal court records relating to a dispositive 18 motion must provide “compelling reasons” that are “sufficiently specific” for doing so. 19 Kamakana v. City & Cnty. of Honolulu, 447 F.3d 1172, 1183 (9th Cir. 2006). 20 The parties move to seal documents filed in support of their dispositive motions, see 21 Dkt. 85, 94; see supra Sec. I. After review of the documents at issue, the Court finds that the 22 documents meet the compelling reasons standard articulated in Kamakana because they contain 23 sensitive proprietary commercial and financial information about the parties that could be used 24 1 by third party competitors. See Kamakana, 447 F.3d at 1183. The parties have articulated 2 sufficiently specific reasons such information should remain confidential. See id; Dkt. 85, 94. 3 III. CONCLUSION Accordingly, for the reasons explained above, the Court ORDERS as follows: 4 5 • The parties’ stipulated motion to seal (Dkt. 85) is GRANTED and the documents 6 at Dkt. 77-15, 77-39, 77-42; Dkt. 82-1–3; and Dkt. 83-1 shall remain SEALED. 7 • Four Roses’ unopposed motion to seal (Dkt. 94) is GRANTED and the documents 8 at Dkt. 77-36; Dkt. 92, and 93 shall remain SEALED. 9 Dated this 26 day of June, 2024. 10 A 11 Tiffany M. Cartwright 12 United States District Judge

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