Performance Chevrolet, Inc. v. ADP Dealer Services, Inc.

Filing 22

ORDER signed by Magistrate Judge Allison Claire on 2/27/2015 DENYING 20 Request to Seal without prejudice. (Michel, G.)

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

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FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

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PERFORMANCE CHEVROLET, INC.,

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No. 2:14-cv-2738 TLN AC

Plaintiff,
v.

ORDER

ADP DEALER SERVICES, INC.,
Defendant.

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Defendant has filed an “Unopposed Request” to seal a document that it has already filed

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on the public docket of this court, unsealed and un-redacted. Defendant asserts that the document

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contains “pricing information” which it says is “confidential.” However, defendant publicly filed

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this document on two separate occasions. Defendant first filed the document as Exhibit B (ECF

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No. 8-1), to its Answer to the original complaint, and then again a month later, as Exhibit B (ECF

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No. 15-1), to its Answer to the First Amended Complaint.

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In general, there must be, at a minimum, “good cause” for overriding the “strong

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presumption” in favor of public access to judicial records. Kamakana v. City and County of

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Honolulu, 447 F.3d 1172, 1178 (9th Cir. 2006). While there might have been good cause to seal

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the document at issue before it was made public – it contains confidential business information,

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and the defendant requested that it be sealed – defendant has not offered sufficient good cause to

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withdraw the document from the public record.
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While the court is sympathetic to defendant’s plight, it does not remove publicly available

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documents from the public’s view without a sufficient showing that sealing is necessary and

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proper. Defendant cites Dayton v. Sears Roebuck and Co., 2014 WL 5797172 (E.D. Cal. 2014)

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(Nunley, J.), for the proposition that a document may be sealed after it has been publicly filed. In

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that case, plaintiff requested that a publicly filed document bearing her date of birth be redacted,

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and the court granted the request. However, the court’s local rules required that “[d]ates of birth”

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be redacted from publicly filed documents, and that “only the year” should be shown. E.D. Cal.

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R. 140(a)(iv). Accordingly, the court ordered the document refiled “with the appropriate

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redactions so that the Court may update the docket and seal the original filing.” Dayton, 2014

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WL 5797172, at *8.

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Defendant has identified no rule, statute, case or other authority requiring that the

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document it filed must be sealed or redacted after the fact. To the contrary, the cases addressing

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this issue have denied requests to seal documents where they were already publicly filed, or

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where the information contained in the documents is already in the public domain. See Level 3

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Communications, LLC v. Limelight Networks, Inc., 611 F. Supp. 2d 572 (E.D. Va. 2009)

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(declining to seal documents offered in a public trial, and providing a thorough discussion of the

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issue).1

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The court does not find defendant’s request to be frivolous, however, and accordingly will

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See also, Joint Equity Committee of Investors of Real Estate Partners, Inc. v. Coldwell Banker
Real Estate Corp., 2012 WL 234396, at *2 (C.D. Cal. 2012) (“Defendants' assertions of
confidentiality are frivolous in large part because Plaintiffs have already filed many of the same
documents without seal on the public docket”); Cooke v. Town of Colorado City, Ariz., 2013 WL
3155411, at *2 (D. Ariz. 2013) (“First, with regard to the exhibits that have been filed unsealed in
any public record, including those that have been filed in this Court's Record since July 30, 2012,
with no party seeking to seal them or otherwise obtaining a protective order for them, there is no
reason to now seal those exhibits. In determining whether to seal a document, ‘the court must
conscientiously balance the competing interests of the public and the party who seeks to keep
certain judicial records secret.’ There can be no secrets in previously publicly disclosed records
that no one has previously sought to protect. As a result, there can be no good cause or
compelling reasons to keep such non-existent ‘secrets.’”); Apple, Inc. v. Samsung Electronics
Co., Ltd., 2014 WL 722489, at *1 (N.D. Cal.2014) (“But Apple already decided to reveal the
specific figures in Apple's opposition brief that Apple now seeks to seal. That request goes too
far.”).
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deny the request without prejudice. Defendant may, if it wishes, renew its request if it can direct

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the court’s attention to a statute, rule or other authority requiring the document to be sealed or

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redacted.

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Accordingly, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that defendant’s request to seal (ECF No. 20),

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is DENIED without prejudice.

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DATED: February 27, 2015

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