Doe v. Uber Technologies, Inc.

Background

Jane Doe brought a negligence claim against Uber Technologies, Inc., and its wholly owned subsidiaries Rasier, LLC and Rasier CA, LLC, collectively called “Uber,” arising from an assault by a former Uber driver posing as a current Uber driver. Under the parties’ stipulated protective order, Uber designated certain discovery documents and testimony as confidential. Doe challenged Uber’s confidentiality designations for Abbie Ding’s deposition transcript, and Uber moved to retain those designations.

Legal standard

The court explained that discovery materials are generally available to the public, but Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(c) permits protection of information for good cause. Because the parties had stipulated to a protective order, Uber—the party seeking continued protection—had the burden of showing good cause after Doe specifically challenged the designations.

The court applied the Ninth Circuit’s two-step approach: first, determine whether disclosure would cause particularized harm; and, if so, balance the public and private interests. The court considered factors including privacy interests, the purpose of disclosure, embarrassment or commercial harm, public health and safety, fairness and efficiency, whether the party benefiting from confidentiality is a public entity, and the public importance of the case.

Analysis

Uber argued that parts of Ding’s testimony disclosed trade secrets concerning a confidential market survey. The court held that several challenged portions did not discuss the survey and therefore were not shown to contain confidential trade-secret information. Uber also failed to show that every portion discussing the survey revealed a trade secret.

The court found, however, that testimony concerning the survey’s design and results could reveal information with economic value to Uber’s competitors. Testimony stating that Ding could not recall survey results or discussing a hypothetical survey question did not reveal trade-secret information. The court found that other identified testimony concerning the survey design and results did reveal such information and posed a particularized risk of harm if disclosed.

Balancing the interests, the court found that disclosure would harm Uber’s privacy and commercial interests. Doe did not identify a specific public interest that would be served by revealing the survey’s particular questions or results. The court also found that the testimony was tangential to the assault because it did not address the assault, the assailant, or Uber’s investigation of the assailant’s conduct. The court concluded that the risk of harm outweighed the minimal public interest in disclosure.

Disposition

The court vacated the scheduled March 24, 2022 hearing because oral argument was unnecessary. It granted in part and denied in part Uber’s motion to retain confidentiality designations.

The court also denied in part and granted in part Uber’s administrative motion to seal. It granted the motion as to Ding’s deposition testimony at pages 60:13–61:14, 69:1–70:14, and 70:18–25, and as to paragraphs 2, 3, and 6 of Ding’s declaration. It denied the motion as to Uber’s discussion of the survey in its brief. The order disposed of Docket No. 177.