Tevra Brands LLC v. Bayer HealthCare LLC

Background

Tevra filed motions to seal portions of its opening and reply briefs supporting its request for jurisdictional discovery, along with accompanying exhibits. The motions were filed at ECF 171 and 174. Tevra based its requests on confidentiality designations, including “Highly Confidential – Attorneys’ Eyes Only,” and on Bayer’s assertions that the materials contained sensitive information about Bayer and its customers, including agreements, retailer pricing arrangements, sales and product strategy, and competitive analysis.

Legal standard

The court explained that judicial records are generally presumed accessible to the public. Because the records concerned motions more than tangentially related to the underlying claims, a party seeking secrecy had to show compelling reasons that outweighed the public’s interest in access. The court also required the requests to comply with the Northern District of California’s Civil Local Rule 79-5, including narrowly tailoring the request to material that was privileged, protected as a trade secret, or otherwise legally entitled to protection.

Ruling

The court found that some of Tevra’s requests were supported by compelling reasons because they involved Bayer’s financial and business information. It found other requests overbroad because the information appeared publicly available.

The court’s document-specific rulings were as follows:

- ECF 171-3, the opening brief: sealing was granted as to all highlighted portions. - ECF 171-5, Exhibit A: sealing was granted as to all highlighted portions. - ECF 171-7, Exhibit B: sealing was granted except for the highlighted material on page 2, lines 19–22, because that information was publicly available. - ECF 171-9, Exhibit C: sealing was granted as to all highlighted portions. - ECF 171-11, Exhibit D: sealing was granted except for the highlighted material on page 3, lines 7, 15, and 17–18, because that information was publicly available. - ECF 171-13 through 171-16, Exhibits E, F, G, and H: sealing was granted as to the entire exhibits. - The reply brief at ECF 174: the request to seal the identified portions was denied as overbroad because the information stated Tevra’s jurisdictional theory in general terms and was discussed in public documents.

In its conclusion, the court granted in part and denied in part the motions to seal at ECF 171 and 174. Tevra was directed to file an unredacted reply memorandum and partially unredacted versions of Exhibits B and D. The parties were also directed to propose stipulated redactions to the court’s October 20, 2020 jurisdictional-discovery order by November 4, 2020.