Brooks v. Thomson Reuters Corporation

Opinion

1 2 3 6 7 CAT BROOKS, et al., Case No. 21-cv-01418-EMC

8 Plaintiffs, ORDER RE PARTIES’ JOINT 9 v. DISCOVERY LETTER BRIEF OF MARCH 24, 2022 Docket No. 81 11 Defendant.

12 13 14 The parties raise a dispute over the procedure by which Defendant will comply with 15 Plaintiffs’ discovery request for Defendant’s data-licensing agreements for CLEAR with third 16 parties. Defendant does not dispute the relevance of the requested documents, and agrees it will 17 produce at least some of the agreements. However, Defendant notes that “over 80 agreements 18 include confidentiality restrictions. . . . Some require advance notice before disclosure of their 19 terms. . . Some (but not all) allow for production without notice following a court order.” Docket 20 No. 81 at 2. Defendant proposes informing those third parties of Plaintiffs’ request, waiting to see 21 if any of the third parties object, and then bringing any disputes that remain to the Court at a later 22 date. Id. at 2-3. Plaintiffs explain that its discovery request has now been pending for several 23 months, Defendant has failed to produce any agreements or notify third-parties of Plaintiffs’ 24 request, and, thus, Plaintiffs seeks an order compelling Defendant to produce all data-licensing 25 agreements, notwithstanding the terms of the various confidentiality provisions. 26 The Court grants Plaintiffs’ request. 27 Defendant agrees that, other than the presence of confidentiality provisions in some 1 Defendant also does not dispute the principle that “‘[c]onfidentiality agreements do not bar 2 discovery, and a general interest in protecting confidentiality does not equate to privilege.’” See 3 Valley Surgical Ctr. LLC. v. Cty. of Los Angeles, No. CV1302265DDPAGRX, 2018 WL 2189458, 4 at *4 (C.D. Cal. May 11, 2018) (citation omitted); id. (collecting cases); Seegert v. Rexall 5 Sundown, Inc., No. 17CV01243JAHJLB, 2019 WL 12044514, at *7 (S.D. Cal. Mar. 26, 2019) 6 (“[T]he Court finds persuasive case law holding that third-party confidentiality agreements, such 7 as those here, should not and do not necessarily preclude a party from producing otherwise 8 permissible discovery.”); Chevron Mining Inc. v. Skanska USA Civ. W. Rocky Mountain Dist., 9 Inc., No. 19-CV-04144-LB, 2019 WL 11556844, at *1 (N.D. Cal. Sept. 13, 2019) (“[T]he fact that 10 [a third party] and Skanska might have decided amongst themselves to enter into a confidentiality 11 agreement does not bar the settlement from being discoverable under the Federal Rules of Civil 12 Procedure in a litigation where Skanska is a defendant.”). And, Defendant does not dispute that 13 confidential information produced in the course of discovery will be subject to the parties’ agreed- 14 upon protective order, and the “protective order . . . will . . . protect [that] information.” In Re: 15 Vizio, Inc., Consumer Privacy Litig., No. 8:16-ML-02693, Dkt. 260 at 14 (C.D. Cal. Feb 5. 2018). 16 Thus, there is no legal basis to delay production of the licensing agreements at this time. 17 Defendant cites Seegert to propose that the Court provide third-parties an opportunity to move 18 for a protective order prior to Defendant’s production. 2019 WL 12044514, *8. But the court in 19 Seegert referred to the notification-and-objection procedure to which the parties agreed their protective 20 order; the court did not create a new process on its own accord in settling the discovery dispute. Id. 21 at *4-*8. Defendant cites no similar notification-and-objection procedure in the protective order 22 agreed upon in this case. Moreover, a third party is not without recourse in this case. It may move 23 to intervene in this litigation to block the requested discovery, should it be so inclined. See, e.g., 24 Chevron Mining Inc., 2019 WL 11556844, at *1. 25 /// 26 /// 27 /// 1 Defendant is ORDERED to produce all relevant requested data-licensing agreements to 2 Plaintiffs within 21 days of entry of this order. 3 This order disposes of Docket No. 81. 4 6 7 Dated: March 25, 2022 8 9 ______________________________________ EDWARD M. CHEN 10 United States District Judge 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27