SACKS HOLDINGS, INC. v. GRIN NATURAL USA LIMITED

District Court, M.D. North Carolina·Decided September 24, 2025·No. 1:23-cv-01058·Unknown

Opinion

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE MIDDLE DISTRICT OF NORTH CAROLINA

SACKS HOLDINGS, INC., ) ) Plaintiff/Counterclaim Defendant ) ) v. ) 1:23-CV-1058 ) GRIN NATURAL USA LIMITED, et ) al., ) ) Defendant/Counterclaim Plaintiffs. )

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

Catherine C. Eagles, Chief District Judge. The plaintiff and the defendants both claim rights to the mark “Grin” in connection with oral health products. Each party seeks to seal certain information in briefs and exhibits filed in connection with cross-motions for partial summary judgment. The Court adopts by reference its explanation of the applicable law as stated in an earlier order. Doc. 204. The motions to seal will be granted in part and denied in part. I. The First Amendment Right of Access Applies. The motions to seal were filed in connection with cross-motions for partial summary judgment. Docs. 156, 164. Therefore, the public has a First Amendment right of access to these materials. The public has had notice of the request to seal, as they have been on the docket for over eight months. II. Motion to Seal, Doc. 164 The parties each seek to seal certain exhibits in whole or in part, as well as certain excerpts of the plaintiff’s brief. Doc. 164 at 1. A. Plaintiff’s Requested Redactions The plaintiff seeks to seal the following:

-- excerpts of its brief, Doc. 169 (redacted version publicly available); Doc. 165 (unredacted version under seal with requested redactions highlighted in blue); and -- excerpts of Devin Chodorow’s declaration, Doc. 163 (redacted); Doc. 167 (unredacted), and Exhibit A to that declaration in total. Doc. 163-1 (placeholder); Doc. 167-1 (unredacted).

All of the information the plaintiff seeks to seal concerns its sales and inventory figures, either in units or dollars, and profit and loss details. The plaintiff did not make this information public, Doc. 168-1 at ¶ 6, and competitors could use it to gain an unfair competitive advantage. Id. at ¶ 7. Disclosure of this information is likely to harm the plaintiff’s business interests. The plaintiff has a compelling interest in keeping this

information private, and the information the plaintiff seeks to seal is narrowly tailored to specific financial data. Given the narrow redactions, there are no alternatives sufficient to protect the parties compelling interest. The plaintiff’s interest in keeping this information confidential is compelling and outweighs the public’s interest in access. This aspect of the motion to seal will be granted. The Clerk will maintain the

following unredacted documents under seal: Doc. 165, Doc. 167, and Doc. 167-1. B. The Defendants’ Requested Redactions The defendants seek to seal the following: -- parts of exhibits containing defendants’ intra-company emails, Doc. 162-3 (redacted); Doc. 166-3 (unredacted);

-- portions of Tara Tan’s deposition1, Docs. 162-1, 162-2 (redacted); Docs. 166-1, 166-2 (unredacted);2 and -- portions of the plaintiff’s brief, Doc. 169 (redacted); Doc. 165 (unredacted, with requested redactions highlighted in yellow). The emails, Doc. 166-3, contain investor information, financial data, and retail and pricing strategy. The uncontradicted evidence establishes that this is confidential

business information. Doc. 171-1 at ¶¶ 5–6. The defendants did not make this information public, Id. at ¶ 7–8, and competitors could use it to gain an unfair competitive advantage. Id. at ¶ 9. Disclosure of this information is likely to harm the defendants’ business interests. The defendants have a compelling interest in keeping this information private, and the information the defendants seek to seal is narrowly tailored

to specific financial data and retail and pricing strategy. Given the narrow redactions, there are not alternatives sufficient to protect the parties compelling interest. The defendants’ interest in keeping this information confidential is compelling and outweighs

1 For the motion to seal excerpts from Tara Tan’s deposition, the Court asked the defendants to submit a chart and a printed copy of the updated requested redactions. Doc. 225 at 2. The defendants submitted the documents on June 3, 2025. In some instances, the redactions were narrowed, but the Court will cite to the documents filed on the public docket.

2 When documents are listed in groups, as here, the first number in the “redacted list” matches up with the first number in the “unredacted list.” Here, for example, Doc. 162-1, the redacted version of Ms. Tan’s deposition, matches up with Doc. 166-1, the unredacted sealed version. the public’s interest in access. The motion to seal will be granted as to the defendants’ confidential business information in Doc. 166-3 (unredacted).

The defendants’ motion to seal parts of Tara Tan’s deposition will be denied as overbroad. For example, the defendants ask that testimony about their attendance at a public international convention, Doc. 166-2 at 11, be sealed as “international business expansion strategies.” Doc. 171-1 at ¶ 5. They have not explained why mention of their past attendance at a public event is confidential. There are several instances where the requested redaction relates to a customer name, yet an entire line or passage has been

redacted rather than only the name itself. See, e.g., Doc. 166-2 at 28, 29, 53. The defendants request the name of one of defendants’ clients, TJX, be redacted in some places, see, e.g., id. at 45, but not in others, see, e.g., id. at 13. In addition to this public disclosure, it is public knowledge that TJX is one of defendant’s customers since TJX is the primary location where defendants’ products are publicly sold.

While a court will sometimes sort through an overbroad motion to seal if it is not too complicated, it has no duty to do so. See, e.g., Natera, Inc. v. NeoGenomics Laboratories, Inc., No. 23-CV-629, 2024 WL 1464744, at *4 (M.D.N.C. Apr. 4, 2024) (noting in summary that “[s]ome of the requests [to seal] were not narrowly tailored, . . . for those, the Court either denied the motion to seal or, where it was not too complicated,

the Court denied the motion in part and authorized sealing only as to the confidential information.”). Here, the defendants have had several opportunities to narrow the information subject to the motion to seal. See, e.g., Doc. 225 at 3. They were reminded that overbroad motions to seal will be denied. Id.; see also Doe v. Pub. Citizen, 749 F.3d 246, 266 (4th Cir. 2014) (requiring that motions to seal be narrowly tailored); Doc. 192 at

¶ 7(a) (standing order). The number of requested redactions is significant, as is the burden on the Court’s time to do work the defendants could and should have done, if sealing the information was actually important to them. See Doc. 204 at 9 (noting that “[t]he Court is not required to use its own time and resources to narrow a party’s designations of confidentiality when the party did not go to that trouble.”). The defendants’ motion to seal parts of Ms. Tan’s deposition submitted by the

plaintiff in connection with its summary judgment motion is not narrowly tailored. The defendants’ motion to seal Docs. 166-1 and 166-2 (unredacted) will be denied. The motion to seal the defendants’ information in the plaintiff’s brief, Doc. 169 (redacted); Doc. 165 (unredacted), will also be denied, largely for the same reason. They again seek to seal the fact that they went to trade shows in 2017, Doc. 165 at 9, along

with the facts that they learned that trademark efforts in 2017 were denied, id. at 10, that they never had any employees in the United States, id. at 14, 21, and that they don’t know the brick-and-mortar stores where GRIN products are sold. Id. at 15, 21.

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