Ely Holdings Limited v. O'Keeffe's, Inc.

Background

The order addresses administrative motions to file documents under seal in connection with the parties’ summary-judgment motions. Plaintiffs filed motions at Docket Nos. 186, 191, and 212. Those motions relied on confidentiality designations by Defendant O’Keeffe’s, Inc. and, for some documents, non-parties.

Plaintiffs’ sealing motions

The court stated that neither the defendant nor the non-parties that originally produced the documents filed responsive declarations establishing that the material qualified for sealing under Civil Local Rule 79-5(e)(1). The court therefore denied the plaintiffs’ motions to seal.

The court ordered plaintiffs to file specified documents without redactions between June 14 and June 21, 2021. Those documents included plaintiffs’ summary-judgment motion, identified exhibits to declarations supporting that motion and plaintiffs’ opposition brief, and plaintiffs’ supplemental brief.

Defendant’s sealing motion

The defendant moved at Docket No. 202 to seal portions of its opposition to plaintiffs’ summary-judgment motion and accompanying exhibits. The court denied the request as to Exhibit 13 to the declaration of Mark Schickman. The exhibit was an advice letter from the defendant’s attorney, but the defendant offered no reason for sealing it beyond describing its contents. Because the exhibit was submitted with a dispositive motion addressing the merits, the court required compelling reasons to seal it, and found that the defendant had not provided them.

The defendant was ordered to file Exhibit 13 publicly by June 21, 2021. Alternatively, it could file by that date a renewed motion seeking to seal narrowly tailored portions of the exhibit, supported by a declaration establishing compelling reasons for sealing.

As to the remainder of the defendant’s motion, the plaintiffs submitted declarations seeking to seal only certain proposed redactions in Exhibits 6, 7, and 17 to Schickman’s declaration. The court found compelling reasons for those redactions. It therefore granted the defendant’s sealing motion only as to the plaintiffs’ proposed redactions in those exhibits, denied it as to the remaining portions of those exhibits, and denied it as to the redacted portions of the defendant’s brief and other exhibits for which plaintiffs did not pursue sealing.

Disposition

The court denied plaintiffs’ administrative motions to file under seal. It granted in part and denied in part the defendant’s administrative motion to file under seal, and ordered the required unredacted materials to be filed in the public record by June 21, 2021. Existing redacted versions of Exhibits 6, 7, and 17 had already been publicly filed, so no further action was required for those versions.