Jackson v. LinkedIn Corporation

• Court: District Court, N.D. California
• Decided: July 15, 2024
• Docket: 5:24-cv-00812
• Status: Unknown

Opinion

1 2 3 4 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 5 NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 6 SAN JOSE DIVISION 7 8 JACQUELINE JACKSON, Case No. 24-cv-00812-PCP (VKD)

9 Plaintiff, ORDER RE DISCOVERY DISPUTE RE 10 v. PROTECTIVE ORDER

11 LINKEDIN CORPORATION, Re: Dkt. No. 47 Defendant. 12

13 14 Plaintiff Jacqueline Jackson and defendant LinkedIn Corporation (“LinkedIn”) ask the 15 Court to resolve a dispute regarding the circumstances under which material designated “Highly 16 Confidential – Attorneys’ Eyes Only” under their proposed protective order may be disclosed to 17 an expert. Dkt. No. 47. The Court finds this matter suitable for resolution without oral argument. 18 Civil L.R. 7-1(b). 19 The parties have agreed to request entry of a two-tier protective order that provides for the 20 exchange of discovery material designated “Confidential” or “Highly Confidential – Attorneys’ 21 Eyes Only” (“HC-AEO”).1 Dkt. No. 47 at 1; Dkt. Nos. 47-1, 47-2. They disagree on one point: 22 whether a receiving party who wishes to share a producing party’s “HC-AEO” material with its 23 expert must first identify the expert, provide a copy of the expert’s current resume, identify the 24 expert’s current employer, and disclose the expert’s work during the past 5 years. See Dkt. No. 25 47-1 at 12 (sec. 7.5(a)). 26

27 1 They also have agreed that the protective order should include provisions for the exchange of 1 Ms. Jackson contends she will be “severely prejudiced” if required to identify and disclose 2 information about her prospective experts to LinkedIn. First, she says that LinkedIn will be able 3 to get a head start on investigating her experts before the deadline for expert witness disclosures. 4 Second, she suggests that complying with the disclosure requirements LinkedIn proposes will 5 “require significant time and effort,” and she should not have to undertake this burden. Third, she 6 claims that requiring her to disclose the categories of information the expert will review will 7 reveal attorney work product. Fourth, she argues that if LinkedIn objects to her proposed expert, it 8 will take time to resolve the dispute, subjecting her to “undue delay.” Dkt. No. 47 at 3-4. 9 LinkedIn responds that the disclosure requirements it proposes are included in this District’s 10 Model Protective Order for Litigation Involving Patents, Highly Sensitive Confidential 11 Information and/or Trade Secrets (“Model Order”) and are “presumptively reasonable.” It argues 12 that the disclosure requirements are warranted here because it anticipates producing highly 13 sensitive technical information, including information regarding the technical functionality of the 14 Insight Tag. Id. at 4-6. 15 If LinkedIn produces information that meets the parties’ agreed definition of “HC-AEO” 16 material, see Dkt. No. 47-1 (sec. 2.8), then it is reasonable for LinkedIn to have an opportunity to 17 evaluate whether disclosure of this material to an adverse expert creates an unacceptable risk to 18 the confidentiality of the material. The requirements of Section 7.5(a) of the Model Order are 19 indeed presumptively reasonable, and the Court disagrees that compliance with these requirements 20 prejudices or unfairly burdens Ms. Jackson. See In re Google Assistant Priv. Litig., No. 19-cv- 21 04286-BLF (SVK), 2020 WL 4698810, at *2 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 13, 2020) (discussing relevant 22 authority). However, LinkedIn must take care not over-designate material as HC-AEO when a 23 lesser designation or no designation is warranted. Moreover, if Ms. Jackson wishes to know 24 before retaining an expert which entities LinkedIn considers its competitors for purposes of the 25 HC-AEO material it expects to disclose in discovery, the Court expects LinkedIn to provide this 26 information to Ms. Jackson upon request. 27 Accordingly, the Court adopts LinkedIn’s proposed text for Sections. 7.3 and 7.5(a). The 1 with this order by July 22, 2024. That proposed protective order should be modified to reflect the 2 || Court’s discovery dispute resolution procedures. See, e.g., Entangled Media, LLC v. Dropbox, 3 Inc., No. 5:23-cv-03264-PCP, Dkt. No. 97 (reflecting modifications to Sections 6.3, 7.5(c), and 4 14.4; Apple Inc. v. Zipit Wireless, Inc., No. 5:20-cv-04448-EJD, Dkt. No. 62 (reflecting 5 modifications to Sections 6.3, 7.5(c), and 14.4).” 6 IT IS SO ORDERED. 7 Dated: July 15, 2024 8 9 Virginia K. DeMarchi 10 United States Magistrate Judge 11 12

15 16

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Z 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 > The Court observes that the parties’ respective proposed protective orders both contain two sections numbered “9.” See Dkt. No. 47-1 at 13, 15; Dkt. No. 47-2 at 13, 15.