In Re Pacific Fertility Center Litigation
- Jacquelyn Corley
- 3:18-cv-01586
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 5
In re Pacific Fertility Center Litigation: Judge Corley granted some sealing requests but denied Chart’s overbroad requests without prejudice.
The plaintiffs, Pacific MSO, Chart Industries, and the public’s access to the court filings were affected. Confidential patient information was sealed, while Chart was required to submit narrower sealing requests.
What happened
In re Pacific Fertility Center Litigation concerns requests to keep parts of filings and exhibits secret while the court considered summary judgment and expert-testimony motions in a product-liability lawsuit involving a cryopreservation tank.
The court granted requests by the plaintiffs and Pacific MSO to seal confidential patient information. It denied Chart’s broader requests because Chart did not specifically identify confidential or trade-secret information or explain the harm that disclosure would cause.
Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley ruled that the motions were granted in part and denied in part. Chart may renew its requests in a narrower form, with a required document list, by March 1, 2021.
The detailed version
- In Re Pacific Fertility Center Litigation · No. 3:18-cv-01586
- Jacquelyn Corley
- Feb. 18, 2021
Background
The plaintiffs bring product-liability and failure-to-recall claims against Chart Industries after a March 2018 incident involving a Chart-manufactured cryopreservation tank that stored the plaintiffs’ eggs and embryos. Chart’s summary-judgment motion and the parties’ motions to exclude expert testimony were pending. In connection with those motions, the parties filed administrative motions asking to seal portions of their briefs and exhibits.
Legal standard
Judicial records are generally presumed to be open to the public. Because the materials were connected to a dispositive motion, a party seeking to seal them had to show compelling reasons. The court explained that requests must also comply with Civil Local Rule 79-5, which requires a party to identify information that is privileged, a trade secret, or otherwise legally protectable, and to narrowly tailor the request. Redaction is preferred when sealing an entire document is unnecessary.
Ruling
The court identified three categories of information at issue: the plaintiffs’ names and related information, a line of Dr. Conaghan’s deposition testimony, and Chart’s business-operation, process, and function information.
The court granted the administrative motions to seal the materials identified in declarations at Docket Nos. 642 and 645. It found that the plaintiffs’ and Pacific MSO’s requests were narrowly limited to confidential patient information.
The court denied Chart’s sealing requests because they covered large portions of documents and expert reports without a particularized explanation. Chart’s general assertion that disclosure of commercially sensitive information could give competitors insight into its operations and business relationships did not satisfy the compelling-reasons standard. The court noted that some pricing or contract information might be sealable, but that did not justify sealing entire emails that also concerned customer complaints or issues involving Chart products. Chart likewise did not explain why entire expert reports or large portions of them required sealing.
The court therefore ruled that the administrative motions were granted in part and denied in part. Chart’s requests were denied without prejudice to renewal in a narrowly tailored form. Any renewed motion was due by March 1, 2021, and had to include a chart identifying each document’s exhibit number, title, and docket number. The order disposed of Docket Nos. 630, 633, 641, 646, 647, 669, 673, and 688.
Read the full 5-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.