In re California Gasoline Spot Market Antitrust Litigation
- Jacquelyn Corley
- 3:20-cv-03131
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
California Gasoline Spot Market Antitrust Litigation: Judge Corley required one expert-disclosure provision, rejected another, and ordered a revised protective order.
The plaintiffs, defendants, and retained experts in the case. The ruling governs when experts may receive highly confidential information and what information about those experts must be disclosed.
What happened
In In re California Gasoline Spot Market Antitrust Litigation, the parties agreed on most terms for a protective order but disagreed about two provisions governing experts and confidential information.
The court required the parties to include one provision, with changes requiring disclosure of an expert’s name, primary-residence city and state, and current resume before access to highly confidential information. It rejected the other provision, which would have imposed a blanket prohibition.
Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley ordered the parties to submit a protective order consistent with the ruling by December 4, 2020, and stated that the order disposed of Docket No. 243.
The detailed version
- In re California Gasoline Spot Market Antitrust Litigation · No. 3:20-cv-03131
- Jacquelyn Corley
- Nov. 24, 2020
Background
The court considered the parties’ joint discovery letter brief about the protective order governing the case. The parties had agreed on the form of the order except for two proposed provisions from a model order concerning litigation involving patents, highly sensitive confidential information, and trade secrets.
Defendants proposed including Sections 2.7 and 7.4. Plaintiffs objected, arguing that those provisions were not appropriate for this antitrust action and would unduly restrict discovery from experts.
Court’s analysis
The court ordered inclusion of Section 7.4, with a modification. That provision requires a party to identify a retained expert to the party that designated information as highly confidential before showing the expert that information. The court stated that identifying the expert would allow the designating party to determine whether there was a reason to ask the court to prohibit that expert from receiving the information.
The court modified Section 7.4 to require disclosure of the expert’s full name, the city and state of the expert’s primary residence, and a current resume covering at least the previous five years of the expert’s work. The court found it reasonable to require disclosure of the identities of people given access to highly confidential information. It also noted that a party could challenge whether material was properly designated as highly confidential.
The court declined to include Section 2.7’s blanket prohibition. It explained that if a party believed a proposed expert created an unreasonable risk of competitive harm, the court could decide in the specific circumstances whether disclosure to that expert was warranted if the parties could not resolve the dispute themselves.
Ruling and effect
Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley ordered the parties to submit a protective order consistent with the ruling by December 4, 2020. The order stated that it disposed of Docket No. 243. The court did not rule on the underlying antitrust claims.
Disposition
The court ordered inclusion of Section 7.4 with modification and declined to include Section 2.7. The parties’ joint discovery letter brief was resolved by that order.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.