SinglePoint Direct Solar LLC v. Curiel

• Court: District Court, D. Arizona
• Decided: July 21, 2021
• Docket: 2:21-cv-01076
• Status: Unknown

Opinion

1 WO 2 3 4 5 6 IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 7 FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA

9 SinglePoint Direct Solar LLC, et al., No. CV-21-01076-PHX-JAT

10 Plaintiffs, ORDER

11 v.

12 Pablo Diaz Curiel, et al.,

13 Defendants. 14 15 Pending before the Court is Plaintiffs’ motion to seal two exhibits attached to Doc. 16 51 (Doc. 44), which contain passwords to Plaintiffs’ online accounts. For reasons that 17 follow, the Court will grant the motion. 18 I. LEGAL STANDARD 19 The public has a general right to inspect judicial records and documents, such that 20 a party seeking to seal a judicial record must overcome “a strong presumption in favor of 21 access.” Kamakana v. City & Cnty. of Honolulu, 447 F.3d 1172, 1178 (9th Cir. 2006). To 22 do so, the party must “articulate compelling reasons supported by specific factual 23 findings that outweigh the general history of access and the public policies favoring 24 disclosure. . . .” Id. at 1117–79 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). The 25 Court must then “conscientiously balance the competing interests of the public and the 26 party who seeks to keep certain judicial records secret.” Id. at 1179 (internal quotation 27 marks omitted). “After considering these interests, if the court decides to seal certain 28 judicial records, it must base its decision on a compelling reason and articulate the factual 1 basis for its ruling, without relying on hypothesis or conjecture.” Id. (internal quotation 2 marks omitted). The “stringent” compelling reasons standard applies to all filed motions 3 and their attachments where the motion is “more than tangentially related to the merits of 4 a case.” Ctr. for Auto Safety v. Chrysler Grp., LLC, 809 F.3d 1092, 1096, 1101 (9th Cir. 5 2016). 6 II. DISCUSSION 7 Here, the Court finds that compelling reasons exist for sealing the exhibits 8 Plaintiffs request. Indeed, the reasons for doing so should be apparent. The very nature of 9 protecting accounts with passwords is to prevent others from accessing the information 10 the passwords protect. The most straightforward way of preventing others from accessing 11 this information would be to prevent the passwords from becoming publicly available. 12 Including a list of passwords to company accounts in a public court filing would 13 seem to accomplish the opposite, and in this case, for no reason. Whether Defendants 14 disclosed the passwords to Plaintiff may be relevant to the Court’s consideration of the 15 issues in this case, but the Court is at a loss as to why including specific passwords to 16 specific accounts in an unredacted attachment to a motion could have any conceivable 17 importance. 18 Accordingly, on balance, the Court finds that public disclosure of this information 19 would cause harm to Plaintiffs that outweighs the policy in favor of public disclosure. 20 III. CONCLUSION 21 For the foregoing reasons, 22 IT IS ORDERED that is Plaintiffs’ motion to seal (Doc. 53) is GRANTED. The 23 Clerk of Court shall file under seal Defendants’ Exhibits B and C (currently lodged at 24 Doc. 54). The Clerk of Court shall also seal Doc. 51. 25 /// 26 /// 27 /// 28 /// 1 IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Defendants shall re-file their response 2|| Plaintiffs’ motion for an amended TRO and motion to dismiss (Doc. 51) unsealed, but 3 || with the passwords listed in Exhibits B and C redacted within one day of this Order. 4 Dated this 20th day of July, 2021. 5 6 '

James A. CO 8 Senior United States District Judge 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

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