Glover v. County of San Mateo
- Haywood Gilliam
- 4:24-cv-08793
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
In Rita Glover v. County of San Mateo, Judge Gilliam granted the parties’ motions to seal documents after the case was dismissed.
The parties’ documents related to the defendants’ summary-judgment motion were affected, as were public-access interests in those documents.
What happened
In Rita Glover, et al. v. County of San Mateo, et al., the parties asked the court to seal documents connected to the defendants’ motion for summary judgment. The documents concerned issues related to the case’s merits.
The court explained that documents closely related to the merits generally may be sealed only for compelling reasons. But before deciding the summary-judgment motion, the parties agreed to dismiss the entire action with prejudice, and the court approved that agreement. The court never considered the summary-judgment motion or relied on the information the parties sought to seal.
Judge Gilliam granted both motions to seal because the public interest in accessing information the court never used was minimal.
The detailed version
- Glover v. County of San Mateo · No. 4:24-cv-08793
- Haywood Gilliam
- Aug. 13, 2026
Background
The parties filed administrative motions asking the court to seal documents. The documents were related to the defendants’ motion for summary judgment, a procedure asking the court to decide a case without a trial based on the record.
Before the court issued an order on that motion, the parties stipulated to dismiss the entire action with prejudice. The court granted the stipulation and dismissed the case. As a result, the court did not consider the defendants’ summary-judgment motion and did not rely on any information the parties sought to seal.
Legal standard
The court explained that judicial records generally are presumed open to the public. Documents more than tangentially related to the merits of a case usually may be sealed only when the party seeking secrecy identifies compelling reasons, supported by specific facts, that outweigh the public’s interest in access. Documents only tangentially related to the underlying claims are subject to the lower good-cause standard under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(c).
Because the documents were related to the defendants’ summary-judgment motion, the court applied the compelling-reasons standard. The court nevertheless found that the public interest in access was minimal because the court never considered the motion or relied on the information in the documents.
Ruling
The court granted the parties’ motions to seal. The opinion does not identify the specific documents or information covered by the motions.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.