Cojocaru v. Merck Sharp & Dohme LLC

• Court: District Court, S.D. California
• Decided: June 30, 2025
• Docket: 3:24-cv-01770
• Status: Unknown

Opinion

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 9 SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 10 11 RADU COJOCARU, Case No.: 24-cv-1770-W-KSC

12 Plaintiff, ORDER RE JOINT DISCOVERY 13 v. STATEMENT [Doc. No. 31] 14 MERCK SHARP & DOHME LLC, 15 Defendant. 16 17 On May 16, 2025, following the lodgment of a Joint Discovery Statement by the 18 parties, the Court held a substantial discovery hearing on the record as to whether defendant 19 should be able to redact documents produced in discovery on the ground those documents 20 contained confidential business information. Doc. Nos. 24, 27, 34. On June 26, 2025, 21 plaintiff filed a second Joint Discovery Statement addressing the same documents. Doc. 22 No. 31. Plaintiff contends defendant is still overzealously redacting discoverable 23 information. Id. Defendant contends it has only redacted information that would be 24 tantamount to divulging the secret formula for Coca-Cola, which is the touchstone the 25 Court previously provided as guidance for what level of trade secrets defendant might 26 protect from disclosure to plaintiff, given plaintiff remains connected to the pharmaceutical 27 industry. See id.; see also Doc. No. 34 at 23-24. 28 The Court may issue a protective order preventing or limiting disclosure of trade 1 secrets. Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(c)(1)(G). Trade secrets are not absolutely privileged, and they 2 may be produced in discovery. Gonzales v. Google, Inc., 234 F.R.D. 674, 685 (N.D. Cal. 3 2006). The Court has discretion to require production of trade secrets but limit the use of 4 the discovered documents. Fed. Open Market Comm’n of the Fed. Res. Sys v. Merrill, 443 5 U.S. 340, 3562 (1979). “‘The burden is on the party requesting a protective order to 6 demonstrate that (1) the material in question is a trade secret or other confidential 7 information within the scope of Rule 26(c), and (2) disclosure would cause an identifiable, 8 significant harm.’” Tac Holdings LLC v. Atlatl Grp. LLC, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 82784, 9 at *8 (quoting Deford v. Schmid Prod. Co., a Div. of Schmid Labs., 120 F.R.D. 648, 653 10 (D. Md. 1987)). If the party withholding discovery can meet that burden, the party moving 11 to compel carries the burden of showing disclosure is nonetheless warranted. Id. at *8-9 12 (quoting IntelliCAD Tech. Consortium v. Suzhou Gstarsoft Co., 508 F. Supp. 3d 790, 795 13 (D. Or. 2020)). 14 As a general matter, a protective order preventing use or disclosure of trade secrets 15 other than for purposes of litigation is adequate protection. See Heat & Control, Inc. v. 16 Hester Indus., 785 F.2d 1017, 1025-26 (Fed. Cir. 1986); Table de France, Inc. v. DBC 17 Corp., EDCV 19-423-JGB-KKx, 2019 WL 6888043, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 221931, at 18 *11 (C.D. Cal. Aug. 1, 2019) Finley v. Pulcrano, C 08-248-PVT, 2008 WL 4500862, 2008 19 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 83821, at *5-6 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 6, 2008). The parties already have exactly 20 such a protective order in place, which is based on the Court’s Model Protective Order for 21 patent cases. Doc. No. 11. The protective order in place allows for the designation of 22 confidential documents as “FOR COUNSEL ONLY,” which is intended to protect trade 23 secrets given the competitive nature of the industry. Id. at 3. The Court has even reminded 24 the parties of this fact once before. Doc. No. 34 at 24. 25 Parties to high-stakes patent litigation involving hundreds of millions of dollars’ 26 worth of valuable intellectual property routinely use stipulated protective orders with 27 counsel-only designation provisions to facilitate the exchange of information (with 28 document productions orders of magnitude larger than what is at issue in this case) without 1 || any Court involvement whatsoever. The Court cannot conceive how that level of protection 2 ||could be insufficient in this single-plaintiff employment case. The Court was previously 3 ||inclined to permit defendant the use of judicious redactions in the hope that further Court 4 |/intervention would prove unnecessary. However, it is clear the parties cannot resolve this 5 |}on their own. Accordingly, because a FOR COUNSEL ONLY designation adequately 6 || protects the defendant’s interests in this case and because transparency is the only way to 7 this dispute to rest, the Court orders defendant to produce all the discovery at issue, 8 ||unredacted and designated FOR COUNSEL ONLY, within 15 days of this Order. The 9 || parties shall thereafter meet-and-confer in good faith if plaintiff's counsel contends any of 10 documents should bear a less restrictive confidentiality designation, or no designation 11 |/at all. The parties may thereafter bring any designation dispute to this Court consistent with 12 terms of the Protective Order [Doc. No. 11 913]. This deadline shall not be modified 13 || by the parties without leave of Court, which the parties may seek by a timely Joint Motion 14 Modify Court Order (whether they agree or not about an extension) after meeting and 15 || conferring. 16 IT IS SO ORDERED. 17 || Dated: June 30, 2025 A 18 Ml Ye □□ 19 Hori. Karen 8S. Crawford United States Magistrate Judge 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28