Calhoun v. Google LLC
- Yvonne Rogers
- 4:20-cv-05146
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 7
In Calhoun v. Google LLC, Judge Van Keulen granted motions to seal specified discovery materials, protecting confidential Google information and plaintiffs’ personal information.
The plaintiffs and Google LLC; the order also affects public access to the specified court filings and discovery materials.
What happened
Calhoun v. Google LLC involved two administrative requests to keep materials submitted with discovery-related motions from public view. The materials included filings, exhibits, a letter, and parts of a deposition transcript.
The court granted both motions to seal as specified. It allowed redactions or sealing of information about Google’s internal systems, identifiers, cookies, logs, operations, and data, as well as some plaintiffs’ personally identifying information. The court applied the lower “good cause” standard because the materials concerned discovery disputes rather than the merits of the case.
Judge Susan Van Keulen entered the order on August 11, 2021. The order addressed confidentiality and public access to court records; it did not decide the underlying dispute.
The detailed version
- Calhoun v. Google LLC · No. 4:20-cv-05146
- Yvonne Rogers
- Aug. 11, 2021
Background
The court considered administrative motions to file materials under seal in connection with discovery disputes. The motions were docketed as 225 and 232. The requested materials included plaintiffs’ motion to compel and supporting declaration, exhibits to that declaration, a proposed order, an opposition to the motion to compel, a June 21, 2021 Google letter, and portions of a deposition transcript.
Legal standard
Court records generally carry a strong presumption of public access. The court explained that requests involving records more than tangentially related to the merits require “compelling reasons” for secrecy. For records related only to discovery disputes, the lower “good cause” standard under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(c) applies. The court applied the good-cause standard here because the materials concerned discovery-related motions rather than the merits of the case. It also noted that a different standard or context could lead to different sealing conclusions.
Ruling
The court granted the motion associated with ECF 225 as to specified redacted portions of plaintiffs’ notice of motion and motion to compel, the supporting memorandum, the declaration of Jay Barnes, and the proposed order. It granted the request as to Exhibits A through G in their entirety. The court found that the material concerned confidential technical information about Google’s operations and consumer data, including internal identifiers and cookies, proprietary functions, logs, information in those logs, and internal data-retention policies. The court stated that this information was maintained as confidential in the ordinary course of Google’s business and was not generally known to the public or Google’s competitors.
The court also granted the motion associated with ECF 232 as to specified redacted portions of the opposition to plaintiffs’ motion to compel, the June 21, 2021 Google letter, and the April 9, 2021 deposition transcript of David Monsees. The reasons included protection of confidential and proprietary information about Google’s internal systems, operations, identifiers, data logs, internal services, and related employee responsibilities. The letter also contained plaintiffs’ personally identifiable information.
Effect of the order
The order granted the sealing requests only to the portions or documents identified in the court’s tables. It concerned access to discovery materials and did not resolve the underlying claims or discovery disputes. The opinion is signed by Susan Van Keulen, United States Magistrate Judge.
Read the full 7-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.