Calhoun v. Google LLC
- Yvonne Rogers
- 4:20-cv-05146
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 5
In Calhoun v. Google LLC, Magistrate Judge Van Keulen granted three motions to seal discovery materials containing Google’s confidential information.
The order affects Google, the plaintiffs, and public access to materials filed in connection with the case’s discovery disputes. It permits specified redactions and sealing of entire exhibits containing information the court found confidential and proprietary.
What happened
In Calhoun v. Google LLC, the parties asked the court to seal materials connected to disputes about discovery. The court applied a lower secrecy standard because the materials were tied to discovery motions rather than the case’s underlying merits.
The court granted the motions in the specific ways listed in its order. It approved redactions in the Special Master’s report, the plaintiffs’ objections and supporting declarations, Google’s responses and objections, and a proposed order. It also approved sealing entire copies of several exhibits. The court found that the information concerned confidential details about Google’s internal systems, identifiers, cookies, projects, logs, data structures, and related policies.
Magistrate Judge Van Keulen ruled that the proposed redactions were narrowly tailored, or that the documents contained confidential and proprietary information that Google ordinarily keeps secret and that is not generally known to the public or Google’s competitors. The order addressed access to discovery materials, not the merits of the underlying lawsuit.
The detailed version
- Calhoun v. Google LLC · No. 4:20-cv-05146
- Yvonne Rogers
- Nov. 12, 2021
Background
The court considered administrative motions to file materials under seal in connection with discovery disputes. The motions were docketed as Nos. 359, 360, and 361, with the opinion also referring to Dkt. 365.
The court explained that judicial records generally carry a strong presumption of public access. Under the governing standards, a party seeking to seal records connected to matters more than tangentially related to the merits must show compelling reasons. For records connected to matters that are not related, or are only tangentially related, to the merits, the lower good-cause standard under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(c) applies. The court also noted that parties must follow Civil Local Rule 79-5.
Rulings
The court held that the good-cause standard applied because the materials were submitted in connection with discovery-related motions rather than motions concerning the merits of the case.
For Dkt. 359, the court granted the motion as to specified redacted portions of the October 20, 2021 Special Master’s Report. The court found those redactions narrowly tailored to protect confidential and proprietary information about sensitive features of Google’s internal systems and operations, including internal identifiers, projects, and data structures.
For Dkt. 360, the court granted the motion as to specified redacted portions of the plaintiffs’ objections to, and motion to modify, the Special Master’s sealed recommendations and order. The court also granted the motion as to specified redacted portions of the supporting declarations of Zubair Shafiq and David Straite, specified redacted portions of Exhibit C, and specified redacted portions of the proposed order. The stated reasons included protection of confidential and proprietary information concerning Google’s internal systems and operations, identifiers, cookies, projects, and proprietary functions. Exhibit C was sealed in its entirety.
For Dkt. 361, the court granted the motion as to specified redacted portions of Google’s responses and objections to the Special Master’s report and orders on referred discovery issues. The court granted the motion as to the entire documents identified as Exhibits 1, 2, 3, and 4. The court found that these materials contained confidential and proprietary information about Google’s internal identifiers, projects, data logs, data structures, internal logs, data-usage policies, and related features of its products and services. The court stated that Google maintained this information as confidential in the ordinary course of business and that it was not generally known to the public or Google’s competitors.
Disposition and scope
Magistrate Judge Susan Van Keulen granted the administrative motions in the specific portions and documents identified in the order. The opinion did not decide the underlying claims or discovery disputes on their merits; it addressed whether specified court-filed materials should remain sealed.
Read the full 5-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.