de Fernandez v. MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company S.A.

What the Court Decided

The court entered a stipulated protective order under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(c). The order governs confidential information that the parties, third parties, and other persons may exchange during discovery. The order states that the parties' agreement and the court's findings support a tailored confidentiality order because disclosure of certain information could harm the producing person or a third party owed a duty of confidentiality.

Information That May Be Marked Confidential

A producing person may designate only material whose disclosure is restricted by law or could harm business, commercial, financial, or personal interests, including:

- previously undisclosed financial information; - information about ownership or control of a nonpublic company; - business plans, product development information, marketing plans, patents, or protectable trade secrets; - personal, embarrassing, intimate, or personally identifying information; and - high-risk data that could contribute to security breaches or fraud.

The court may also give other categories confidential status. In some circumstances, privacy laws outside the United States may allow the producing person to mark an entire document, including its metadata, as confidential.

Disclosure and Use Limits

People subject to the order may not disclose confidential discovery material except as the order permits. Permitted recipients include the parties and certain insurers, litigation counsel and their staff, litigation-support vendors, mediators or arbitrators, specified people identified in a document, potential witnesses, experts and other specialized advisers, deposition transcription services, and the court and its personnel. Several categories of recipients must first receive the order and sign a nondisclosure agreement.

Confidential material may be used only to prosecute or defend this action and appeals from it. It may not be used for business, commercial, competitive, or other litigation purposes. The order does not restrict a person's use of that person's own information or information obtained independently of discovery.

Challenges, Sealing, and Personal Information

A party may object to a confidentiality designation before trial. If the parties cannot resolve the objection, they must bring the dispute to the court under the court's individual rules. A party may similarly request extra limits on disclosure, such as an attorneys'-eyes-only restriction in extraordinary circumstances.

The order does not automatically allow confidential discovery material to be filed under seal. A party seeking to file documents under seal must first submit a letter-motion explaining the basis for sealing and must publicly file a redacted version while filing the unredacted version under seal. The court retains discretion over whether to keep material confidential and states that it is unlikely to seal material introduced as evidence at trial.

Recipients must securely maintain personally identifying information. If a recipient experiences a data breach, the recipient must immediately notify the producing person and cooperate in addressing the breach.

Privileged Material and End of the Case

An inadvertent disclosure of attorney-client privileged material or attorney work product does not waive the protection under the order. After a claim of inadvertent disclosure, the receiving party generally must return or destroy the material within five business days and provide a certification. The producing party must then provide a privilege log, and the receiving party may ask the court to order production. The producing party retains the burden of proving that the material is privileged or protected.

The order continues after the litigation ends. Within 30 days after final disposition, recipients must return or destroy confidential discovery material and certify that they retained no copies, abstracts, compilations, summaries, or other reproductions, subject to the order's allowance for certain archival litigation files retained by counsel. The court retains jurisdiction to enforce the order and impose contempt sanctions for willful violations.

Disposition

Judge Jeannette A. Vargas signed the order on April 1, 2025. The opinion is a discovery-related procedural order; it does not decide the underlying claims or defenses.