Huntsman v. Southwest Airlines Co.
- Jacquelyn Corley
- 3:19-cv-00083
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
In Huntsman v. Southwest Airlines, Judge Hamilton granted some and denied some requests to seal class-certification materials.
Southwest Airlines Co. and Jayson Huntsman, whose filings and exhibits were subject to the court’s sealing and redaction rulings; the public’s access to those materials was also affected.
What happened
In Huntsman v. Southwest Airlines Co., Southwest asked the court to seal parts of its opposition to Jayson Huntsman’s motion for class certification and supporting exhibits.
The court said these materials are closely related to the case’s merits, so Southwest had to show compelling reasons for sealing them. The court granted some requests, denied others, and allowed a limited redaction of financial information.
Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton granted the request to file a redacted opposition; granted sealing for specified deposition passages and Huntsman’s W-2 forms; denied sealing for other deposition passages, military records, service-date documents, and a calendar; and allowed redaction of Huntsman’s retired pay grade in one Air Force document.
The detailed version
- Huntsman v. Southwest Airlines Co. · No. 3:19-cv-00083
- Jacquelyn Corley
- Feb. 24, 2021
Background
Southwest Airlines Co. filed a renewed administrative motion to seal portions of its opposition to Jayson Huntsman’s motion for class certification and exhibits supporting that opposition.
Legal standard
The court explained that materials submitted with a motion that is more than tangentially related to the merits of a case may be sealed only when the party seeking secrecy shows compelling reasons. The court stated that class-certification motions meet that standard because they are closely related to the merits.
Rulings on the materials
The court granted Southwest’s request to file a redacted opposition brief.
For Brian D. Berry’s declaration, Exhibit A, the court denied the request to seal the deposition transcript at Huntsman Dep. 208:2–25 and granted the request to seal the transcript at Huntsman Dep. 302:15–303:25.
For Berry’s declaration, Exhibit B, the court granted the request to seal Huntsman’s W-2 tax forms, pages P00003–08. It denied the request to seal Huntsman’s “PCARS” military service record, pages P00009–15. It also denied the request to seal Huntsman’s Air Force Reserve Order, pages P000016–17, except that the parties may redact Huntsman’s retired pay grade following the equal sign on page P000016 because it may involve financial information.
For John Freed’s declaration, the court denied the requests to seal the document listing Huntsman’s active-duty statuses in 2017 and 2018 and the calendar containing Huntsman’s military-service dates in 2017 and 2018.
Disposition
The court entered these rulings on Southwest’s renewed motion to seal and ordered that the matter be so resolved. The opinion is signed by United States District Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.