Exeltis USA Inc. v. First Databank, Inc.
- Haywood Gilliam
- 4:17-cv-04810
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 19
In Exeltis v. First Databank, Judge Gilliam granted in part and denied in part requests to seal documents filed with summary-judgment and expert motions.
Exeltis USA Inc. and First Databank, Inc.; the ruling also affected public access to the parties’ court filings and protected some proprietary business information from disclosure.
What happened
Exeltis USA Inc. v. First Databank, Inc. involved the parties’ requests to keep portions of documents secret while they pursued summary-judgment and expert-related motions. The requests covered business, sales, licensing, customer, financial, and strategy information.
The court said documents connected to summary-judgment motions could be sealed only for strong, specific reasons that outweighed the public’s right to see court records. It rejected confidentiality labels and general claims of harm as enough by themselves, but found that some narrowly limited redactions protected sensitive business information.
Judge Gilliam granted in part and denied in part both sealing motions. Documents or portions approved for sealing would remain sealed, while the parties had to file public versions of materials for which sealing was denied within seven days.
The detailed version
- Exeltis USA Inc. v. First Databank, Inc. · No. 4:17-cv-04810
- Haywood Gilliam
- June 1, 2020
Background
The parties filed administrative motions asking the court to seal portions of documents submitted with motions for summary judgment and motions concerning expert evidence. The requests appeared on Docket Nos. 167 and 179.
Legal standard
Because the materials related to summary-judgment motions, the court applied the “compelling reasons” standard. That standard starts with a strong presumption that judicial records should be available to the public. A party seeking secrecy must identify specific reasons that outweigh the public interest in access. Civil Local Rule 79-5 also requires a request to identify material that is privileged, a trade secret, or otherwise legally protected, and to seek sealing only as narrowly as necessary.
The court explained that merely labeling information “confidential” or “confidential—attorneys’ eyes only” under a protective order does not establish that the information may be sealed. It also noted that, in many instances, the designating party had not filed the required supporting declaration within four days. The court further stated that some exhibits lacked either a public version or a sealed version for review.
Discussion and rulings
The court found that sealing was not warranted for documents lacking the required support or for which the parties had provided only a confidentiality designation. It also found that some requested redactions were narrowly limited to confidential and proprietary business, sales, or licensing information. This included information identifying First Databank’s customers or subscribers, First Databank’s financial performance and company strategy, and Exeltis’s contracts with third parties. The court concluded that releasing some of this information could give competitors an unfair advantage.
For Docket No. 167, the court granted in part and denied in part the motion. It denied sealing for many listed excerpts and entire exhibits because no supporting declaration had been filed. It granted sealing for excerpts containing proprietary information about First Databank’s subscribers and granted in part and denied in part sealing for an exhibit where only specified pages contained that information.
For Docket No. 179, the court granted in part and denied in part the motion. It granted sealing for specified pages of one filing, granted in part and denied in part several exhibits only as to text identifying First Databank’s customers or addressing customer contracts, and granted sealing for exhibits containing proprietary information about Exeltis’s third-party contracts, First Databank’s subscribers, First Databank’s financial performance and strategy, First Databank’s operations, and business and survey information. It denied sealing for other exhibits because no supporting declaration was filed or because no public or sealed version was available for review. The chart in the opinion provides the individual disposition for each listed document or exhibit.
Conclusion
The court granted in part and denied in part the parties’ administrative motions to file under seal. Materials for which sealing was granted were to remain under seal. The court directed the parties to file public versions of documents for which sealing was denied within seven days of the order.
Read the full 19-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.