Boghossian v. Capella University

Nature of the Order

This is a stipulated protective order governing discovery. Discovery is the pretrial process through which parties exchange information and documents relevant to their claims and defenses. The parties, through counsel, agreed to the proposed terms, and the court found good cause to issue an appropriately tailored confidentiality order under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(c).

Confidential Information and Permitted Use

The order covers discovery materials, including documents, objects, deposition transcripts, written discovery responses, electronically stored information, recordings, emails, text messages, and information derived from those materials. A party may designate material as confidential when it may properly be treated as confidential under the federal rules and applicable case law. The order specifically identifies financial data as an example and states that discovery may include confidential medical information and financial data.

Confidential discovery materials may be used only to pursue or defend the claims in this litigation, including any appeal. The parties also agreed that information exchanged in discovery, whether or not marked confidential, will be used only for purposes of the litigation and will not be shared with third parties except for those purposes.

Who May Receive the Materials

The order permits disclosure to the named parties; counsel and their litigation staff; the parties' inside counsel, staff, and insurers; employees who need the information to prepare for trial or depositions; court officials; people designated by the court; outside consultants and experts; and certain data-processing personnel and contractors. Other people may receive the materials if the producing party consents.

People in several of these categories must receive the order and sign a confidentiality agreement before obtaining access. Subpoenaed nonparties may request the order's protections for materials they provide, but a nonparty that designates materials under the order submits to the court's jurisdiction for related discovery issues.

Special Protections

Capella intends to produce the plaintiffs' own records, including communications from their Capella student email accounts, without redactions. Those records may contain personally identifying information about the plaintiffs or other people. The plaintiffs are responsible for protecting that information, and they must redact personally identifying information from any such records submitted to the court as required by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 5.2.

The order allows confidential materials to be shown during depositions, but unauthorized people must be excluded while confidential information is discussed. A party generally has 30 days after receiving a deposition transcript to designate specific pages or exhibits as confidential. Court reporters are to use initials for nonparty students' names unless the parties agree otherwise.

If privileged material—information protected by the attorney-client privilege or work-product protection—is produced, the production does not waive the privilege. The order establishes procedures for notifying the producing party, returning, deleting, or destroying the material, preserving it if the privilege claim is disputed, and asking the court to decide the dispute. A receiving party may challenge the privilege claim, but may not use or disclose the material while the dispute is unresolved.

Challenges, Court Filings, and Duration

A receiving party may challenge a confidentiality designation in writing. The producing party must explain its position within no more than 10 business days, and the parties must negotiate in good faith. If they cannot resolve the dispute, the designating party has 10 business days to ask the court to preserve the designation and bears the burden of proving that the designation is proper. Until the dispute is resolved, the material remains confidential; failure to seek an order ends the designation.

Before filing material containing confidential information, the parties must meet and confer about requesting permission to file under seal or redacting the information. The order states that confidential materials filed under seal remain sealed until further court order.

Within 60 calendar days after final judgment, the end of any appeal period, exhaustion of an appeal, or dismissal under a settlement, covered people generally must return, delete, or destroy confidential materials and certify that they did so. Counsel may retain work product such as summaries that refer to confidential material, but must continue to protect it. The confidentiality duties do not end when the litigation or a person's employment ends.

Ruling

Judge Valerie Caproni ordered the parties and other covered people to follow the stipulated protective order. The opinion does not decide the underlying claims, the merits of any defense, or whether any particular material is ultimately confidential.