Berkeley Insurance Company, a Delaware corporation v. OakCare Medical Group

• Court: District Court, N.D. California
• Decided: April 4, 2023
• Docket: 3:22-cv-05181
• Status: Unknown

Opinion

1 2 3 4 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 5 NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 6 7 BERKLEY INSURANCE COMPANY, A Case No. 22-cv-05181-HSG DELAWARE CORPORATION, 8 ORDER GRANTING IN PART AND Plaintiff, DENYING IN PART MOTION FOR 9 LEAVE TO FILE UNDER SEAL AND v. TO CORRECT THE DOCKET 10 OAKCARE MEDICAL GROUP, et al., Re: Dkt. No. 33 11 Defendants. 12 13 Pending before the Court is Defendant Sharnoff’s Motion for Leave to File Under Seal and 14 to Correct the Docket. Dkt. No. 33 (“Mot.”). Plaintiff Berkeley Insurance Company (“BIC”) has 15 filed an opposition. Dkt. No. 34 (“Opp.”). The Court GRANTS IN PART and DENIES IN 16 PART the motion. 17 I. LEGAL STANDARD 18 “The normal presumption in litigation is that parties must use their real names.” Doe v. 19 Kamehameha Sch./Bernice Pauahi Bishop Estate, 596 F.3d 1036, 1042 (9th Cir. 2010); see also 20 Fed. R. Civ. P. 10(a) (stating that “title of the complaint must name all the parties”). Although it 21 recognizes that the “use of fictitious names runs afoul of the public’s common law right of access 22 to judicial proceedings,” the Ninth Circuit has “permitted parties to proceed anonymously when 23 special circumstances justify secrecy.” Does I through XXIII v. Advanced Textile, 214 F.3d 1058, 24 1067-68 (9th Cir. 2000) (citations omitted). Parties are allowed to use pseudonyms “in the 25 unusual case when nondisclosure of the party’s identity is necessary to protect a person from 26 harassment, injury, ridicule or personal embarrassment.” Id. at 1068 (alterations adopted and 27 quotations omitted). Specifically, “a party may preserve his or her anonymity in judicial 1 the opposing party and the public's interest in knowing the party's identity. Id. “Applying this 2 balancing test, courts [in other districts and circuits] have permitted [parties] to use pseudonyms in 3 three situations: (1) when identification creates a risk of retaliatory physical or mental harm; . . . 4 (2) when anonymity is necessary to preserve privacy in a matter of sensitive and highly personal 5 nature; . . . . and (3) when the anonymous party is compelled to admit his or her intention to 6 engage in illegal conduct, thereby risking criminal prosecution.” Id. (alterations adopted and 7 quotations omitted). 8 Where “pseudonyms are used to shield the anonymous party from retaliation, the district 9 court should determine the need for anonymity by evaluating the following factors: (1) the severity 10 of the threatened harm, (2) the reasonableness of the anonymous party’s fears; and (3) the 11 anonymous party’s vulnerability to such retaliation.” Id. 12 When ruling on the necessity and appropriateness of anonymity, “the court must also 13 determine the precise prejudice at each stage of the proceedings to the opposing party, and 14 whether proceedings may be structured so as to mitigate that prejudice.” Id. “Finally, the Court 15 must decide whether the public’s interest in the case would be best served by requiring that the 16 litigants reveal their identities.” Id. (quotations omitted). 17 If anonymity is warranted, “the district court should use its powers to manage pretrial 18 proceedings under Rule 16(b) and to issue protective orders limiting disclosure of the party’s 19 name under Rule 26(c) to preserve the party’s anonymity to the greatest extent possible without 20 prejudicing the opposing party’s ability to litigate the case.” Id. at 1069. 21 II. DISCUSSION 22 Ms. Sharnoff filed a state court action against her former employers using her initial as a 23 pseudonym. Mot. at 2. According to the motion, “Defendant Sharnoff filed the state court action 24 in pseudonym due to the uniqueness of her name, the highly sensitive nature of the private medical 25 and personal information disclosed, and her profession.” Id. at 3. The motion states that BIC 26 chose to name Ms. Sharnoff as a defendant using her full name but stated that it would not object 27 to Ms. Sharnoff seeking to proceed pseudonymously. Id. at 3; see also Opp. at 2 (“BIC does not 1 BIC’s ability to conduct full and fair discovery or other efforts to obtain the relief it seeks, and so 2 long as it not used by Sharnoff to argue that BIC has agreed to Sharnoff proceeding 3 pseudonymously in [the state court action].”) 4 The Court does not find that the justifications advanced in the motion or the sealed 5 declaration (Dkt. No. 33-1) “outweigh[] prejudice to the opposing party and the public’s interest in 6 knowing the party’s identity.” Advanced Textile at 1068; cf. Guifu Li v. A Perfect Day Franchise, 7 Inc., 270 F.R.D. 509, 516 (N.D. Cal. 2010) (analyzing the need for anonymity due to potential 8 retaliation and determining that “the severity of harm factor is a gating issue 9 under Advanced Textile; if the harm feared is economic, and less than ‘extraordinary,’ no 10 anonymity order can issue”). Accordingly, the Court DENIES Defendant Sharnoff’s request to 11 proceed pseudonymously and to correct the docket.1 12 Defendant Sharnoff also requests that her address be redacted from Dkt. No. 27, BIC’s 13 Certificate of Service. The Court finds that there is good cause to seal Defendant Sharnoff’s 14 address—particularly as there is no compelling reason for the public to have this information— 15 and GRANTS Defendant Sharnoff’s request to redact her address from this document. See 16 Kamakana v. City & Cnty. of Honolulu, 447 F.3d 1172, 1180 (9th Cir. 2006) (stating that “[a] 17 ‘good cause’ showing . . . will suffice to keep sealed records attached to non-dispositive 18 motions”); cf. Doe v. City of San Diego, No. 12-CV-689-MMA-DHB, 2014 WL 1921742, at *4 19 (S.D. Cal. May 14, 2014) (find that an exhibit’s disclosure of personal information and irrelevance 20 to the matter satisfied the higher “compelling reasons” standard for sealing exhibit). 21 // 22 // 23 // 24

25 1 Further, it is not clear how Defendant Sharnoff suggests that the docket be “corrected” to redact her full name from entries. The proposed order lists around 30 docket entries that would need to 26 be “corrected to replace all instances where [Defendant Sharnoff’s] name appears and replacing her name with her initials,” Dkt. No. 33-2 at 2, but does not provide a proposal for executing this 27 plan. The Court finds that it would be logistically infeasible to “correct” all the docket entries that 1 |) I. CONCLUSION 2 The motion is GRANTED IN PART and DENIED IN PART as set forth above.” 3 The Court DIRECTS the Clerk to remove Dkt. No. 27 from the docket. The Court further 4 || DIRECTS BIC to file by April 7, 2023 a copy of the certificate of service with the address 5 || redacted in lieu of Dkt. No. 27. 6 7 IT IS SO ORDERED. 8 || Dated: 4/4/2023 Abayprrd 3 Mbp. HAYWOOD S. GILLIAM, JR. 10 United States District Judge 11 12

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Z 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 || 2 The motion also requested leave to file under seal a stipulation extending the time for Defendant 28 Sharnoff to respond to the complaint to December 12, 2022. The motion is TERMINATED AS MOOT as to this request.