Loggervale v. County of Alameda

Background

The plaintiffs moved to file certain materials under seal because the defendants had designated information as confidential. The materials concerned matters including prior investigations, alleged reasonable suspicion for detaining the plaintiffs, training records, personnel records, internal-affairs investigations, deposition testimony, and body-camera footage.

The court explained that federal court records carry a strong presumption of public access. To overcome that presumption, a party must provide a compelling factual basis showing that secrecy outweighs the public interest in disclosure. Because the disputed records concerned essential elements of the claims and defenses, the court applied the demanding “compelling reasons” standard to much of the material. The court also noted that defendants’ supporting declarations for their sealing requests had been filed late.

Rulings

The court granted in part and denied in part the motions to seal.

For the plaintiffs’ unredacted motion for partial summary judgment, the court found that defendants’ request to seal failed both procedurally and substantively, and marked the filing for public filing.

For Exhibit A to Joseph S. May’s declaration, which included a transcript and incident report, the court permitted public filing except for personal identifying information. The permitted redactions were limited to driver’s-license numbers, email and physical addresses, telephone numbers, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, and signatures. Exhibits C and E, K, L, N, O, P, and Q were also to be filed publicly, with personal identifying information removed or blurred where applicable.

For the plaintiffs’ unredacted opposition to defendants’ motion for summary judgment, the court allowed only specified portions to be filed under seal, including identified portions on pages 2, 8, 17, 19, and 20. For Exhibit R, the court allowed only the listed categories of personal identifying information to be redacted and otherwise required public filing. Exhibit S could be filed publicly with personal identifying information blurred.

Under the court’s earlier order, Exhibit X, Exhibit Y, Exhibit EE to Kevin E. Gilbert’s supplemental declaration, and pages 89–90 of Exhibit Z could remain under seal. For Exhibits AA and BB, the court allowed redaction of specified internal-affairs material, but required public filing of the single sentence quoted in the order, the writing by Sheriff Ahern, and the memorandum’s conclusion.

The court denied the motion concerning Exhibit CC, a deposition transcript of Sergeant Jimmy Martinez about police-academy training on race discrimination and racial profiling. The court found that the transcript’s discussion of hypotheticals based on prior burglaries was central to the summary-judgment dispute and valuable to the public. Exhibits FF and GG to Gilbert’s supplemental declaration could remain under seal under the earlier order.

Effect of the Order

The order required public disclosure of most of the disputed records, subject to narrow redactions of personal identifying information and specified sensitive material. It did not decide the underlying claims or the defendants’ summary-judgment motion; it ruled on access to and redaction of court filings and exhibits.