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N.D. Cal.Procedural orderFiled May 10, 2021

Rodriguez v. Google LLC

Judge
Richard Seeborg
Docket
3:20-cv-04688
Court
U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
Pages
1
Civil Procedure
In one sentence

In Rodriguez v. Google LLC, Judge Tse denied Google's request to keep information in a joint letter brief secret.

Who this affects

Google and the parties to the joint letter brief; the ruling permits public disclosure of the information Google sought to seal.

What happened

Rodriguez v. Google LLC concerned Google's request to keep parts of the parties' joint letter brief from the public.

Google argued that the brief contained confidential business information. The opinion does not identify the specific information or explain the underlying dispute.

Judge Alex G. Tse ruled that Google had not shown that public disclosure would cause specific harm or prejudice, and denied the motion to seal.

The detailed version

For law students, journalists, and other readers who want the full reasoning

Case
Rodriguez v. Google LLC · No. 3:20-cv-04688
Judge
Richard Seeborg
Date
May 10, 2021

Background

Google asked the court to seal portions of the parties' joint letter brief. The requested sealing concerned information Google described as confidential business information. The opinion does not provide further details about the information or the dispute underlying the joint letter brief.

Ruling

A motion to seal asks the court to restrict public access to material filed in a case. Judge Alex G. Tse applied the requirement that the party seeking secrecy show that specific prejudice or harm would result from public disclosure. The court found that Google had not made that showing and denied the motion to seal the information. The order therefore left the identified information subject to public disclosure.

The authoritative version

Read the full 1-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.

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