State Farm Fire and Casualty Insurance Company as subrogee of Rosetta and Noel…
State Farm Fire and Casualty Insurance Company as subrogee of Rosetta and Noel Arnold v. Gree USA, INC.
- Philip Halpern
- 7:23-cv-10111
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 10
In State Farm Fire and Casualty Insurance Company v. Gree USA, Judge Halpern entered a stipulated protective order governing confidential discovery materials.
The parties, their corporate parents, successors and assigns, representatives, agents, experts, consultants, third parties providing discovery, and anyone else with actual or constructive notice of the protective order.
What happened
State Farm Fire and Casualty Insurance Company, as subrogee of Rosetta and Noel Arnold, sued Gree USA and other defendants. The parties jointly asked the court to protect nonpublic and competitively sensitive information exchanged during discovery.
The order limits disclosure of materials marked confidential, including certain financial information, business plans, product-development information, marketing plans, and personal information. It also sets procedures for challenging confidentiality designations, filing confidential materials with the court, handling accidentally disclosed privileged information, and returning or destroying confidential materials after the case ends.
The court approved and entered the stipulated protective order. Judge Philip M. Halpern found good cause for the order and warned that violating it could lead to contempt proceedings.
The detailed version
- State Farm Fire and Casualty Insurance Company as subrogee of Rosetta and Noel… · No. 7:23-cv-10111
- Philip Halpern
- Apr. 10, 2024
Background
The parties jointly submitted a proposed confidentiality agreement and protective order under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(c). They asked the court to govern the handling of nonpublic and competitively sensitive information that could be disclosed during discovery. The defendants named in the caption are Gree USA, Inc., MJC America, Ltd., Gree Electric Appliances, Inc. of Zhuhai, and Hong Kong Gree Electric Appliances Sales, Ltd.
Order’s Terms
The order defines “Discovery Material” broadly as information produced or disclosed during discovery. A producing party may designate only material that it reasonably and in good faith believes contains specified confidential information, including previously undisclosed financial information; information about ownership or control of a nonpublic company; business plans, product-development information, or marketing plans; personal or intimate information; or another category later given confidential status by the court.
People subject to the order generally may not disclose designated confidential material except to listed recipients. Those recipients include the parties and their insurers, counsel and litigation-support personnel, outside vendors, mediators or arbitrators, certain people identified in documents, potential witnesses, experts, deposition stenographers, and the court. Some recipients must first sign a nondisclosure agreement.
The order also provides that confidential materials may be used only to prosecute or defend this case and related appeals, not for business, commercial, competitive, or other litigation purposes. It establishes procedures for filing redacted public versions and unredacted sealed versions of court submissions. A confidentiality designation does not automatically require the court to seal material, and the order states that the court is unlikely to keep material confidential if it is introduced into evidence at trial.
The order allows parties to object to confidentiality designations or request additional disclosure limits before trial. It protects attorney-client privileged and attorney-work-product material that is inadvertently disclosed, subject to procedures requiring the receiving party to return or destroy the material and allowing a motion seeking its production. Within 60 days after final disposition, recipients must return or, with the producing party’s permission, destroy confidential material and certify that they retained no copies, subject to a limited archival-copy exception for litigation counsel.
Ruling and Effect
The court found good cause for an appropriately tailored confidentiality order governing the pretrial phase of the action and ordered all persons covered by it to comply. The order remains binding after the litigation ends, and the court retains jurisdiction as necessary to enforce its obligations or impose sanctions for contempt. Judge Philip M. Halpern signed the order on April 10, 2024.
Read the full 10-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.