Kannan v. Apple Inc.
- Edward Davila
- 5:17-cv-07305
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
In Kannan v. Apple Inc., Judge Demarchi granted Apple’s motion to seal an exhibit containing Kannan’s personal information from a discovery dispute.
Apple Inc. and Raja Kannan; the ruling concerns Exhibit C, which contains Kannan’s personal and employment-related information.
What happened
In Kannan v. Apple Inc., Apple asked to seal Exhibit C to a filing about its subpoenas to third parties for Raja Kannan’s employment applications. The parties had agreed to treat the exhibit as confidential, and Kannan did not respond to the sealing request.
The court said the dispute concerned discovery—not the underlying claims or defenses—so the lower “good cause” standard applied. Exhibit C included Kannan’s contact information, employment history, and information about whether he was offered employment.
The court found good cause to keep Exhibit C under seal and granted Apple’s administrative motion. The order was signed by Judge Virginia K. Demarchi.
The detailed version
- Kannan v. Apple Inc. · No. 5:17-cv-07305
- Edward Davila
- Oct. 15, 2019
Background
Apple filed an administrative motion to seal Exhibit C to a joint letter brief concerning a discovery dispute. The dispute involved Apple’s subpoenas to third parties for Raja Kannan’s employment applications and Kannan’s request for a protective order concerning those subpoenas. The parties had agreed to treat Exhibit C as confidential under their protective order. Kannan did not file a response to the sealing motion.
Legal standard
The court explained that judicial records generally are presumed to be open to the public. A lower standard applies, however, when the material concerns a matter only tangentially related to the merits of the case. Because the underlying dispute concerned discovery rather than the parties’ claims or defenses, the court applied Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(c)’s “good cause” standard.
Ruling
The court found good cause to seal Exhibit C because it contained materials designated confidential and included Kannan’s personal information, including contact information, employment history, and information about the decision whether to offer him employment. The court therefore granted Apple’s administrative motion to seal Exhibit C. The order was signed by Virginia K. Demarchi, United States Magistrate Judge.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.