Sinclair v. Agile Web Studios
- Haywood Gilliam
- 4:23-cv-02690
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 4
In Sinclair v. Agile Web Studios, Judge Gilliam denied Plaintiffs’ motion to seal an entire investigator’s report.
Justine Sinclair and DreamOway Inc. must submit a more targeted sealing request if they seek to protect parts of the investigator’s report. The ruling also affects public access to the report and the privacy interests of third parties whose identifying information may appear in it.
What happened
In Sinclair v. Agile Web Studios, Justine Sinclair and DreamOway Inc. asked the court to keep an investigative report private. They said it included protected legal communications, attorney work product, and identifying information about third parties.
The court found that Plaintiffs had publicly filed at least one page of the report several times. Because Plaintiffs sought to seal the entire report without identifying the specific sensitive portions, the court found that the request was not narrowly tailored. The court noted that some information, especially third parties’ identifying information, might qualify for protection.
Judge Haywood S. Gilliam, Jr. denied the motion to seal. He directed Plaintiffs to file a renewed motion within 10 days identifying each portion they seek to protect and explaining why, without seeking to seal material they had already made public.
The detailed version
- Sinclair v. Agile Web Studios · No. 4:23-cv-02690
- Haywood Gilliam
- Mar. 4, 2025
Background
Justine Sinclair and DreamOway Inc. filed an administrative motion asking to seal a report prepared for them by Creative Solutions Investigative Services, a private investigator. Plaintiffs argued that the report contained attorney-client communications, attorney work product, and personally identifiable information concerning third parties.
Plaintiffs sought to seal the entire report because they said it was impossible to determine which information was relevant to Plaintiffs, Defendants, or the litigation.
Court’s analysis
For records connected to a dispositive motion, the court generally applies a “compelling reasons” standard. That standard requires the party seeking secrecy to identify specific reasons that outweigh the public’s strong interest in access to court records. The party must also consider reasonable alternatives, minimize the material sealed, and avoid sealing entire documents when redaction would be sufficient.
The court noted that Plaintiffs had publicly filed at least one page of the report as an exhibit to other motions after filing the sealing motion. The court therefore found that Plaintiffs had not convincingly explained why the entire report should remain sealed. It also stated that other portions of the report likely contained information that could satisfy the compelling-reasons standard, particularly third parties’ personally identifiable information.
But the court concluded that Plaintiffs had not proposed a narrowly tailored request. They sought to seal the entire report without identifying the specific portions that should be protected, including portions that had already been publicly disclosed.
Ruling
The court DENIED Plaintiffs’ motion to seal, Dkt. No. 93. It DIRECTED Plaintiffs to file a renewed motion within 10 days seeking to seal only specific third-party information and any other truly sensitive information. The renewed motion must identify each portion for which sealing is requested and explain why that particular information should be sealed. It may not seek to seal portions of the report that Plaintiffs already publicly disclosed.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.