Deckers Outdoor Corporation v. Last Brand, Inc.

Background

Deckers filed an administrative motion asking the court to consider whether a document submitted in connection with a discovery dispute should be filed under seal. The sealing request was based on a confidentiality designation by Last Brand, which the opinion also refers to as “Quince.” The document summarized Quince’s spending on Google AdWords advertising for certain products.

Quince responded that the document disclosed confidential information about its marketing strategies. Deckers initially stated that it intended to oppose the confidentiality designation and submit briefing under the applicable local rule, but it did not file an opposition brief. The court also noted that Deckers had twice indicated that it would file opposition briefs and had failed to do so.

Legal standard

The court explained that documents filed with discovery motions may be kept under seal when they are no more than tangentially related to the merits of the case, if the party seeking secrecy shows “good cause.” This is less demanding than the “compelling reasons” standard used for filings more closely connected to the merits.

The court also stated that the more recent standard focuses on whether the material is more than tangentially related to the merits, rather than primarily on whether the underlying motion is classified as dispositive or non-dispositive. The court encouraged Quince to use this more recent standard in future sealing requests.

Ruling

Judge Cisneros held that Quince had shown good cause to seal the AdWords summary and ordered the document to remain under seal. The order did not decide whether compelling reasons would support sealing the same document in a different context more closely related to the merits of the case.