Kannan v. Apple Inc.

Background

The parties filed six administrative motions asking to seal documents submitted with several discovery disputes. The underlying disputes concerned whether the parties had produced discovery as required by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the court’s discovery orders; they did not address the merits of the parties’ claims or defenses.

Because the materials were connected to discovery matters that were only indirectly related to the merits, the court applied Rule 26(c)’s “good cause” standard. The court explained that most of the proposed sealed information consisted of Apple employees’ individual compensation and performance information and Raja Kannan’s personal information. Apple represented that the employee information was confidential or highly confidential business information and that public disclosure could cause competitive harm; it also represented that much of the information included employees’ private personal information.

Findings about Kannan’s exhibits

Kannan did not provide the declaration required to support sealing some exhibits from the joint discovery letter concerning documents about his software application development. The court nevertheless found good cause to seal Exhibits B, D, and E because they contained private personal information, including personal contact information for Kannan and his family. The court found that Exhibits C and F did not appear to contain confidential information and that Kannan had not shown good cause to seal them.

Ruling

The court granted in part and denied in part the administrative motions to seal. Its table identified the following portions for sealing:

- Joint discovery letter concerning compensation information, Dkt. 179: Exhibits B through K in their entirety. - Joint discovery letter concerning Kannan’s production of documents related to his application, Dkt. 184: Exhibits B, D, E, and J in their entirety. - Kannan’s administrative motion for reconsideration, Dkt. 187: Exhibits A through E in their entirety. - Apple’s opposition to Kannan’s administrative motion for reconsideration, Dkt. 193: Exhibits B through F in their entirety. - Joint discovery letter concerning “AEO” designations, Dkt. 198: Exhibits B through K in their entirety. - Apple’s opposition to Kannan’s administrative motion for a discovery ruling, Dkt. 204: the portions identified in the order’s table, including pages 8 through 23 and an exhibit identified there as Exhibit F in its entirety.

Under the court’s order, Apple had to file Exhibits C and F from the Dkt. 184 joint discovery letter no earlier than November 26, 2019, and no later than December 2, 2019. Magistrate Judge Virginia K. Demarchi signed the order.