Ratcliff v. Faulkner

• Court: District Court, D. Nevada
• Decided: March 22, 2024
• Docket: 2:21-cv-01351
• Status: Unknown

Opinion

2 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 3 DISTRICT OF NEVADA 4 * * * 5 Evan Ratcliffe Case No. 2:21-cv-01351-RFB-DJA 6 Plaintiff, 7 Order v. 8 Bob Faulkner, et al., 9 Defendants. 10 11 Before the Court is the parties’ stipulated protective order (ECF No. 67). The parties 12 request that the Court enter a protective order to govern their exchange of confidential 13 information. However, the parties fail to state the governing standard for filing documents under 14 seal with the Court. This order reminds counsel that there is a presumption of public access to 15 judicial files and records. A party seeking to file a confidential document under seal must file a 16 motion to seal and must comply with the Ninth Circuit’s directives in Kamakana v. City and 17 County of Honolulu, 447 F.3d 1172 (9th Cir. 2006) and Center for Auto Safety v. Chrysler Group, 18 LLC, 809 F.3d 1092, 1097 (9th Cir. 2016). 19 IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that the parties’ stipulated protective order (ECF No. 20 67) is granted subject to the following modifications: 21 • Section 8(d) of the stipulated protective order is removed. (ECF No. 67 at 8) 22 (stating “Deletion of Documents filed under Seal from Electronic Case Filing 23 (ECF) System. Filings under seal shall be deleted from the ECF system only upon 24 order of the Court.”). 25 • The Court has adopted electronic filing procedures. Attorneys must file 26 documents under seal using the Court’s electronic filing procedures. See Local 27 Rule IA 10-5. Papers filed with the Court under seal must be accompanied with a 1 concurrently-filed motion for leave to file those documents under seal. See Local 2 Rule IA 10-5(a). 3 • The Court has approved the instant protective order to facilitate discovery 4 exchanges, but there has been no showing, and the Court has not found, that any 5 specific documents are secret or confidential. The parties have not provided 6 specific facts supported by declarations or concrete examples to establish that a 7 protective order is required to protect any specific trade secret or other confidential 8 information pursuant to Rule 26(c) or that disclosure would cause an identifiable 9 and significant harm. 10 • All motions to seal shall address the standard articulated in Ctr. for Auto Safety 11 and explain why that standard has been met. 809 F.3d at 1097. 12 • Specifically, a party seeking to seal judicial records bears the burden of meeting 13 the “compelling reasons” standard, as previously articulated in Kamakana. 447 14 F.3d 1172. Under the compelling reasons standard, “a court may seal records only 15 when it finds ‘a compelling reason and articulate[s] the factual basis for its ruling, 16 without relying on hypothesis or conjecture.” Ctr. for Auto Safety, 809 F.3d at 17 1097. (quoting Kamakana, 447 F.3d at 1179). “The court must then 18 ‘conscientiously balance[ ] the competing interests of the public and the party who 19 seeks to keep certain judicial records secret.” Ctr. for Auto Safety, 809 F.3d at 20 1097. 21 • There is an exception to the compelling reasons standard where a party may satisfy 22 the less exacting “good cause” standard for sealed materials attached to a 23 discovery motion unrelated to the merits of the case. Id. “The good cause 24 language comes from Rule 26(c)(1), which governs the issuance of protective 25 orders in the discovery process: ‘The court may, for good cause, issue an order to 26 protect a party or person from annoyance, embarrassment, oppression, or undue 27 burden or expense.’” Id. (citing Fed.R.Civ.P. 26(c)). “For good cause to exist, the 1 will result if no protective order is granted.” Phillips v. General Motors, 307 F.3d 2 1206, 1210-11 (9th Cir. 2002). 3 • The labels of “dispositive” and “nondispositive” will not be the determinative 4 factor for deciding which test to apply because the focal consideration is “whether 5 the motion is more than tangentially related to the merits of a case.” Ctr. for Auto 6 Safety, 809 F.3d at 1101. 7 • The fact that the Court has entered the instant stipulated protective order and that a 8 party has designated a document as confidential pursuant to that protective order 9 does not, standing alone, establish sufficient grounds to seal a filed document. See 10 Foltz v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 331 F.3d 1122, 1133 (9th Cir. 2003); see 11 also Beckman Indus., Inc. v. Int’l Ins. Co., 966 F.2d 470, 476 (9th Cir. 1992). If 12 the sole ground for a motion to seal is that the opposing party (or non-party) has 13 designated a document as confidential, the designator shall file (within seven days 14 of the filing of the motion to seal) either (1) a declaration establishing sufficient 15 justification for sealing each document at issue or (2) a notice of withdrawal of the 16 designation(s) and consent to unsealing. If neither filing is made, the Court may 17 order the document(s) unsealed without further notice. 18 • To the extent any aspect of the stipulated protective order may conflict with this 19 order or Local Rule IA 10-5, that aspect of the stipulated protective order is hereby 20 superseded with this order. 21 IT IS SO ORDERED. 22 DATED: March 22, 2024 23 DANIEL J. ALBREGTS 24 UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE 25 26 27