Burzdak v. Universal Screen Arts, Inc.

Opinion

1 2 3 4 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 5 NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 6 7 KAREN BURZDAK, Case No. 21-cv-02148-EMC

8 Plaintiff, ORDER GRANTING PLAINTIFF’S 9 v. ADMINISTRATIVE MOTION TO CONSIDER WHETHER ANOTHER 10 UNIVERSAL SCREEN ARTS, INC., PARTY’S MATERIAL SHOULD BE SEALED 11 Defendant. Docket No. 86 12 13 14 I. DISCUSSION 15 Defendant seeks to seal the total amount of renewal fees charged to Class Members as 16 defined in the original Settlement Agreement and the percent of this amount that Plaintiffs would 17 have received in settlement had the original Settlement Agreement gone forward. See Docket 18 Nos. 86 (Pl.’s Admin. Mot. to Consider Whether Another Party’s Materials Should Be Sealed 19 (“Sealing Mot.”)), 88 (Def.’s Resp. (“Resp.”)). Because the parties have filed an Amended 20 Settlement Agreement, these figures are no longer relevant to this matter. Compare Docket No. 21 83 (listing original figures) at 1, 14, 17, with Docket No. 100 at 2 (listing the new figures). 22 Defendant claims that these figures are “confidential and highly sensitive information 23 regarding Universal’s revenue from VIP memberships, the disclosure of which could cause 24 Universal competitive harm.” Resp. at 3. Defendant argues that competitors could use the figures 25 to learn about their margins and commercial strategies, or to determine whether to adopt similar 26 features in their products. Id. at 3-4. Plaintiff opposes, arguing that the figures are tied to the 27 merits of the case, and that the public and Class Members have strong interests in the figures. 1 Settlement Agreement, Plaintiff’s points are moot, and the figures are no longer relevant to the 2 litigation nor do Class Members have any interest in them. Thus, “although the [figures] in 3 question are attached to a dispositive motion, they ha[ve] no bearing on the resolution of the 4 dispute on the merits and are therefore more akin to . . . ‘unrelated,’ non-dispositive motion 5 documents.” Network Appliance, Inc. v. Sun Microsystems Inc., No. C-07-06053 EDL, 2010 WL 6 841274, at *2 (N.D. Cal. Mar. 10, 2010). For information within a non-dispositive motion, a party 7 must make “a particularized showing of ‘good cause’ to keep the documents under seal.” 8 Kamakana v. City & Cnty. of Honolulu, 447 F.3d 1172, 1176 (9th Cir. 2006). Defendant has 9 made such a particularized showing of good cause to keep the figures under seal. Therefore, the 10 Court GRANTS the motion to seal. 11 This order disposes of Docket No. 86. 12 13 IT IS SO ORDERED. 14 15 Dated: September 1, 2023 16 17 ______________________________________ EDWARD M. CHEN 18 United States District Judge 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27