Laatz v. Zazzle, Inc.

Background

Plaintiff Nicky Laatz filed an administrative motion asking the court to consider whether another party’s materials should be sealed. The materials were submitted in support of Laatz’s motion to exclude testimony from Defendants’ experts. Zazzle, Inc. and Mohamed Alkhatib supported sealing the identified materials. Laatz did not respond to their statement.

Legal standard

The court explained that judicial records generally carry a strong presumption of public access. For records related more than tangentially to the merits of a case, a party seeking to seal them must show “compelling reasons” supported by specific facts that outweigh public access. The court also noted that the Northern District of California’s local rule requires an explanation of the interests supporting sealing, the harm from disclosure, why a less restrictive alternative would not suffice, and supporting evidence when necessary. Any sealing order must be narrowly tailored.

Court’s analysis

Because the materials supported the motion to exclude expert testimony, the court applied the compelling-reasons standard. The court found that the requested redactions covered confidential information about Zazzle’s proprietary Design Tool; specific numbers of designs and users; and Zazzle’s sales, revenues, and expenses. It concluded that Zazzle established compelling reasons to protect confidential information about its internal technical operations and commercially sensitive information. The court also found that the requests were narrowly tailored and that no less restrictive alternative to redaction was sufficient.

Order

The court granted the motion to seal. It ordered that the entire Expert Report of Dominic Persechini be sealed because it contained confidential information about Zazzle’s sales, revenues, expenses, and numbers of users. It also ordered redactions to specified portions of the Rebuttal Report of Christopher Rucinski because they contained confidential information about the technical operation of Zazzle’s proprietary Design Tool and details about the number of Zazzle’s users and designs. The court ordered the entire Expert Report of Jeffrey Kinrich sealed for confidential information concerning Zazzle’s sales, revenues, expenses, and numbers of users.