Nichols v. Geico Insurance Company

Opinion

1 2 The Honorable Richard A. Jones

7 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT WESTERN DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON 8 AT SEATTLE

9 MERLE NICHOLS, 10 Case No. 2:18-cv-01253-RAJ Plaintiff, 11 ORDER ADOPTING THE v. PARTIES’ JOINT 12 STATEMENT GEICO GENERAL INSURANCE 13 COMPANY,

14 Defendant.

15 Three motions are pending in this matter: one for summary judgment (Dkt. # 73) 16 and two regarding the certification of a class (Dkt. ## 77, 94). In support of or 17 opposition to those motions, the parties sought to file certain documents under seal and 18 accordingly filed several motions to seal. Dkt. ## 75, 79, 90, 99. This Court previously 19 struck the motions to seal. Dkt. # 111. Instead, the Court required the parties to submit 20 their sealing requests in the form of a joint statement. Id. That joint statement required 21 the parties to provide, among other things, “(i) specific examples of harm from the 22 designating party that would result from allowing the submitted materials, or portions 23 thereof, into the public domain and (ii) articulated reasons as to why alternatives to 24 sealing would be insufficient.” Id. at 4. The parties have since filed that joint 25 statement. Dkt. # 116. 26 27 1 The joint statement is divided into two sections. The first section addresses 2 sealed documents with respect to Defendant GEICO General Insurance Company’s 3 motion for summary judgment. The parties agree that “none of the exhibits to GEICO’s 4 motion for summary judgment need to be filed under seal.” Id. at 2. Given that, the 5 Court instructs GEICO to re-file unsealed versions of Exhibits 4, 5, 7, 8, and 9. Dkt. 6 # 76. 7 The second section addresses sealed documents with respect to the motions 8 relating to class certification. Id. at 2-3. The parties divide the sealed documents into 9 four categories. First are documents containing Plaintiff Merle Nichols’s medical 10 information. Dkt. # 116 at 3. These documents, the parties concede, were publicly filed 11 in another lawsuit and are therefore part of the public record. Id. at 2-3. The Court 12 instructs the parties to re-file unsealed version of all documents in this category. 13 The three remaining categories are for documents containing GEICO’s 14 confidential trade secrets or proprietary competitive information; confidential medical 15 information of GEICO insureds or claimants who are not parties to this lawsuit1; and 16 briefs or declarations containing confidential information. Unlike the first category, the 17 parties still request that these categories of documents be sealed. As to these 18 documents, the Court finds that the parties have met the applicable sealing legal 19 standard. 20 In the Ninth Circuit, courts are split on whether the “good cause” or “compelling 21 reasons” standard applies to sealed documents in the class certification context.

22 1 The parties disagree on whether this category of documents should be sealed. Dkt. 23 # 116 at 3-4. Mr. Nichols believes that these documents are sufficiently anonymous. Id. GEICO, on the other hand, disagrees, claiming that it is required by the law to 24 maintain the medical information of third party insureds as confidential. Id. The Court 25 agrees with GEICO. Id. Mr. Nichols, in principle, does not disagree that GEICO must not improperly disclose the medical information of third party insureds. Id. He also 26 does not address GEICO’s argument that, if the documents are not sealed, the data could be “reverse engineered to identify individuals.” Id. For these reasons, this category of 27 documents may remain under seal. 1 Compare Ramirez v. GEO Grp., No. 3:18-cv-02136-LAB-MSB, 2019 WL 6782920, at 2 *3 (S.D. Cal. Dec. 11, 2019) (“The vast majority of courts within this circuit treat 3 motions for class certification as non-dispositive motions to which the good cause 4 sealing standard applies.”) (internal quotation marks omitted) with Yan Mei Zheng v. 5 Toyota Motor Corp., No. 5:17-cv-06591-BLF, 2019 WL 6841324, at *1 (N.D. Cal. Dec. 6 16, 2019) (“This Court follows numerous other district courts within the Ninth Circuit 7 in concluding that the compelling reasons standard applies to motions to seal documents 8 relating to class certification.”). The parties do not address this intra-circuit divide. But 9 that does not change the Court’s holding—the documents in these three categories are 10 appropriately sealed under either standard. 11 To the extent it is consistent with this Order, the Court ADOPTS the parties’ 12 joint statement. Dkt. # 116. The parties appear to have already filed the remaining 13 three categories of documents under seal. Dkt. # 117. These documents may remain 14 under seal. Within 14 days of this Order, the parties must re-file unsealed versions of 15 all documents that they are no longer seeking to be sealed. Like the parties did with 16 Docket Entry No. 117, each re-filed, unsealed document must be preceded by a 17 slipsheet. The slipsheet should identify what motion, declaration, or docket entry the 18 newly unsealed document corresponds to. 19 20 DATED this 31st day of August, 2020. A 21 22 The Honorable Richard A. Jones 23 United States District Judge 24 25 26 27 1 _______________________________ 2

5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27