Impossible Foods Inc. v. Impossible X LLC
- Beth Freeman
- 5:21-cv-02419
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 5
Impossible Foods v. Impossible X: Judge Freeman granted both administrative motions to seal portions of court filings and an exhibit.
Impossible Foods Inc., Impossible LLC, Joel Runyon, and public access to the identified court filings and exhibit were affected by the sealing rulings and the requirement to file narrower public versions.
What happened
In Impossible Foods Inc. v. Impossible X LLC, Impossible LLC and Joel Runyon asked to seal portions of their opposition to Impossible Foods Inc.’s motion for partial summary judgment. Impossible Foods did not respond to the first request, while it supported the second request concerning its own information.
The court considered information about business and financial strategies, revenue, expenditures, and marketing. It applied the demanding “compelling reasons” standard because the filings were more than lightly connected to the case’s claims, and found that disclosure could cause competitive harm.
Judge Beth Labson Freeman granted both administrative motions. The order allowed the specified portions of the opposition and all of an attached exhibit to remain sealed, and required the parties to file narrower public versions by September 29, 2025, unless they filed renewed sealing motions.
The detailed version
- Impossible Foods Inc. v. Impossible X LLC · No. 5:21-cv-02419
- Beth Freeman
- Sept. 17, 2025
Background
The court considered two administrative motions filed by Impossible X LLC: ECF No. 278, a motion to seal, and ECF No. 279, a motion asking the court to decide whether another party’s material should be sealed. The opinion discusses Defendants Impossible LLC and Joel Runyon collectively as “ILLC.”
ECF No. 278 concerned portions of ILLC’s opposition to Impossible Foods Inc.’s motion for partial summary judgment. ILLC argued that the requested redactions covered business and financial decision-making strategies and that disclosure could reveal critical business information and harm its competitive standing. Impossible Foods did not respond to that motion.
ECF No. 279 concerned material identified in the same opposition. Impossible Foods filed a statement supporting the sealing of information that it said involved financial information, including revenue and expenditures, and marketing strategies. ILLC did not respond to Impossible Foods’s statement.
Legal standard
The court explained that judicial records are generally open to public inspection and copying. Because the materials were part of an opposition to a motion for partial summary judgment, and therefore were more than tangentially related to the underlying claims, the court applied the “compelling reasons” standard. Under that standard, sealing requires a strong justification. The court also applied the requirement that sealing requests be narrowly tailored to seal only material that qualifies for protection.
Rulings
For ECF No. 278, the court found compelling reasons to seal the highlighted portions at pages and lines 3:13; 8:26; and 9:3–4 and 9:6–9 of the opposition. The court described those portions as sensitive information about ILLC’s financial information whose release could cause competitive harm. The motion at ECF No. 278 was GRANTED.
For ECF No. 279, the court found compelling reasons to seal the highlighted portions at pages and lines 4:17–19, 4:21–26, 4:28; 5:1–4, 5:11–13, 5:19–22, 5:24, and 5:26; 6:7–8; 21:9; 23:26–28; and 24:1–2 of the opposition. The court also allowed the entire document identified as Exhibit 2 to the declaration of Adam S. Cashman to be sealed. The court described these materials as discussions of sensitive business strategy and financial information whose release could harm Impossible Foods. The motion at ECF No. 279 was GRANTED.
The parties were ordered to refile public versions of each filing when the court-approved redactions and sealing were narrower than the redactions in the existing public versions. They had to do so by September 29, 2025, unless they filed a renewed sealing motion for a document in the filing.
Read the full 5-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.