Doe v. Uber Technologies, Inc.

Background

Jane Doe brings a negligence claim against Uber Technologies, Inc., and its wholly owned subsidiaries Rasier, LLC and Rasier CA, LLC. The claim arises from an assault by a former Uber driver who posed as a current Uber driver. Under a protective order agreed to by the parties, Uber designated discovery documents and testimony as confidential.

Doe challenged Uber’s confidentiality designations for portions of two deposition transcripts. Uber then moved to keep those designations in place under Section 6.3 of the protective order. The depositions involved Uber employees Jodi Page and Nicholas Silver. The court had previously denied a similar request concerning portions of three other witnesses’ depositions.

Legal standard

The court explained that the public generally may access information produced during discovery. Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(c), a court may protect confidential information for good cause. When a party challenges a confidentiality designation, the party seeking continued protection must show that public disclosure would cause particularized harm—that is, specific harm connected to the information at issue.

The court stated that it first had to decide whether disclosure would cause particularized harm. Only if such harm were shown would the court balance public and private interests using the relevant factors for maintaining a protective order.

Court’s ruling

Uber argued that disclosure would embarrass the two employees. But Uber did not discuss the specific transcript portions it wanted to keep confidential and relied largely on a generalized claim of embarrassment. Uber also referred to a New York Times article about testimony covered by the court’s earlier order and to one witness’s reported embarrassment and anxiety about possible public exposure.

Judge Corley concluded that Uber had not shown particularized harm from disclosure of the two additional depositions. The court stated that broad, unsupported allegations of harm were insufficient and that the press’s contact with witnesses for comment was not an improper communication. Because Uber failed to meet its initial burden, the court did not conduct the further public-versus-private-interest balancing analysis.

The court denied Uber’s motion to retain the confidentiality designations. It also denied Uber’s alternative request to redact the witnesses’ names and unspecified personally identifying information because Uber offered no legal authority for that request and did not identify such information beyond the names. The court denied Uber’s accompanying administrative motion to seal, except that it granted the request to seal Paragraph 6 of Ms. Tanaka’s declaration and the portion of Uber’s brief quoting that paragraph. The court vacated the scheduled hearing and stated that the order disposed of Docket No. 146.