Langford v. Physicians Mutual Insurance Company

Filing 54

PROTECTIVE ORDER. Ordered by Magistrate Judge Cheryl R. Zwart. (Copy mailed to pro se party) (LAC)

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEBRASKA
HOWARD L. LANGFORD,
Plaintiff,
vs.
PHYSICIANS MUTUAL INSURANCE
COMPANY,
Defendant.

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Civil No. 8:16CV16

PROTECTIVE ORDER

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Upon consideration of the Joint Motion for Protective Order filed on April 24, 2017,
and for good cause,
IT IS ORDERED that the motion is GRANTED as follows:
1.

The plaintiff has requested documents some of which contain confidential

personnel information regarding current and/or former employees of Physicians Mutual
Insurance Company. To protect the privacy interests of the Defendant and of individuals not
parties to this action, such documents shall be treated as confidential under the terms of this
Order, and those documents copied by or at the request of the Plaintiff or Counsel for Defendant
shall be designated as “CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION” in the manner set forth in this
Order. A Party who produces material may designate it as CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION
only when the party in good faith believes it contains confidential medical or protected health
information, private information, personnel and compensation information, employee discipline
information, personal or business information, and confidential human resources information
including, but not limited to, ethics investigations, misconduct investigations, and grievance and
complaint handling.

2.

All documents designated as “CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION” shall be

identified as confidential information by placing the word “CONFIDENTIAL” on the face of
such documents.
3.

The Plaintiff shall not give, show, or otherwise divulge any CONFIDENTIAL

INFORMATION produced in this action by the Defendant, or the substance or contents thereof,
or any copies or summaries thereof, to any entity or person except experts employed or retained
by Plaintiff in connection with this action; court personnel; court reporters; and persons noticed
for depositions or trial witnesses to the extent reasonably necessary in preparing to testify in this
lawsuit.

Persons attending portions of any depositions in which CONFIDENTIAL

INFORMATION is used shall be limited to those described within this paragraph. Any pages of
deposition transcripts or affidavits, wherein any CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION is used or
referred to, shall automatically be considered to be CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION. The
Plaintiff shall use the CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION only for purposes of this litigation.
4.

The Plaintiff’s experts or trial witnesses to which such CONFIDENTIAL

INFORMATION is intended to be presented, shall first be presented with a copy of this
Protective Order and instructed to read the same. These experts and trial witnesses shall use said
CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION only for the purposes of this litigation and shall not give,
show, or otherwise divulge any CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION, or the substance or contents
thereof, or any copies or summaries thereof, to any other entity or person without prior approval
of Court. Such persons, other than any attorneys and legal staff, if retained by Plaintiff, shall
sign an acknowledgement of having complied with this paragraph. Plaintiff agrees to specifically
inform Defendant, in writing, when any attorneys are given or shown any CONFIDENTIAL
INFORMATION, prior to such information being furnished.

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5.

If

Plaintiff,

after

receiving

documents

or

information

designated

as

CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION hereunder or Counsel for Defendant after receiving such
documents, objects to such designation of any or all of such items, the following procedure shall
apply:
a.

Plaintiff, or Counsel for the objecting party, if not the Plaintiff, shall serve

on the designating party a written objection to such designation, which shall describe
with particularity the documents or information in question and shall state the grounds for
objection. Plaintiff or Counsel for the designating party, if not the Plaintiff, shall respond
in writing to such objection within 14 days, and shall state with particularity the grounds
for asserting that the document or information is CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION. If
no timely written response is made to the objection, the challenged designation will be
deemed to be void. If the designating party or nonparty makes a timely response to such
objection asserting the propriety of the designation, counsel, including Plaintiff, shall
then confer in good faith in an effort to resolve the dispute.
b.

If a dispute as to a CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION designation of a

document or item of information cannot be resolved by agreement, the proponent of the
designation being challenged shall request a joint status conference with the Court, before
filing a formal motion for an order regarding the challenged designation. The document
or information that is the subject of the filing shall be treated as originally designated
pending resolution of the dispute.
6.

To the extent consistent with applicable law, the inadvertent or unintentional

disclosures of confidential materials that should have been designated as CONFIDENTIAL
INFORMATION, regardless of whether the information, document, or thing was so designated

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at the time of disclosure, shall not be deemed a waiver in whole or in part of a party’s claim of
confidentiality, either as to the specific information, document, or thing disclosed or as to any
other material or information concerning the same or related subject matter. Such inadvertent or
unintentional disclosure may be rectified by notifying in writing Plaintiff and counsel for all
parties to whom the material was disclosed that the material should have been designated
CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION within a reasonable time after disclosure. Such notice shall
constitute a designation of the information, document or thing as CONFIDENTIAL
INFORMATION under this Protective Order.
7.

When the inadvertent or mistaken disclosure of any information, document, or

thing protected by privilege or work-product immunity is discovered by the producing party and
brought to the attention of the receiving party, the receiving party’s treatment of such material
shall be in accordance with Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b)(5)(B). Such inadvertent or
mistaken disclosure of such information, document, or thing shall not by itself constitute a
waiver by the producing party of any claims of privilege or work-product immunity. However,
nothing herein restricts the right of the receiving party to challenge the producing party’s claim
of privilege if appropriate within a reasonable time after receiving notice of the inadvertent or
mistaken disclosure.
8.

CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION shall not be copied or otherwise reproduced

by the receiving party, except for transmission to those individuals identified in this Order as
being eligible to receive such copies, without the written consent of the producing party or, in the
alternative, by further Order of the Court. However, nothing herein shall restrict such qualified
recipients of those documents from making working copies, abstracts, digests, and analyses of
CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION for use in connection with this action. All such working

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copies, abstracts, digests and analyses, shall be deemed CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION
under the terms of this Order.
9.

This Order is entered without prejudice to the right of any party to apply to the

Court at any time for additional protection, or to relax or rescind any restrictions imposed by this
Order when convenience or necessity requires.
10.

Upon final termination of this proceeding, including all appeals, each party must

return to the producing party all original materials produced and designated as CONFIDENTIAL
INFORMATION, and shall also return all copies of such information, in whatever form stored or
reproduced, all other materials including, but not limited to, pleadings, correspondence,
memoranda, notes, and other work product material that contain or refer to CONFIDENTIAL
INFORMATION. This Protective Order shall survive the final termination of this action and
shall be binding on the parties at all times in the future.

April 24, 2017

BY THE COURT:
s/Cheryl R. Zwart
UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE

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