Quackenbush v. American Honda Motor Company, Inc.
- William Alsup
- 3:20-cv-05599
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 6
In Quackenbush v. American Honda, Judge Alsup partly granted and partly denied requests to seal class-certification materials.
The plaintiffs, the defendants, and the public’s access to filings in the class-certification proceedings were affected. The order also permitted limited redactions of customer identifying information and exact diagnostic codes.
What happened
Quackenbush v. American Honda Motor Company, Inc. concerns requests by the plaintiffs and defendants to keep exhibits and parts of their filings confidential during a class-certification dispute.
The parties generally argued that the materials should be sealed because they involved competition, confidential business information, customer identifying information, or proprietary diagnostic codes. The court said the class-certification motion was closely related to the case’s merits, so the parties needed strong reasons to keep the information from the public.
Judge William Alsup granted some requests, granted others in part, and denied others, including requests the court found too broad or involving information central to the decision-making. He allowed limited redactions for customer identifying information and exact diagnostic codes and set deadlines for revised filings.
The detailed version
- Quackenbush v. American Honda Motor Company, Inc. · No. 3:20-cv-05599
- William Alsup
- May 27, 2022
Background
The plaintiffs and defendants separately asked to file under seal exhibits and portions of briefs connected to the plaintiffs’ motion for class certification. The court applied the standard requiring "compelling reasons" for sealing because the class-certification motion was more than tangentially related to the merits of the case. The parties’ supporting materials generally relied on competition, confidential business information, customer information, and proprietary diagnostic codes.
Rulings
The court stated that, except as specifically provided in the order, the sealing requests were denied. The principal rulings were:
- For the plaintiffs’ administrative motion, the request concerning the plaintiffs’ class-certification memorandum was granted in part. The court granted sealing for specified portions of the Greenstone declaration and its listed exhibits. The Stapleford report request was denied in part, including as to portions discussing core issues such as the vehicle actuator, countermeasures, and possible safety issues. The court granted in part the request for Stapleford Report Exhibits C, D, and E, allowing redactions only for customers’ phone numbers, names, addresses, other identifying information, and exact diagnostic codes. The court granted in part the request for the Boyles report and granted the request for Boyles Report Exhibit B. - For the defendants’ administrative motion, the request concerning their opposition to class certification was granted in part, but the order denied sealing for specified portions, including pages 1, 7, 9, 10, and part of page
- The request concerning the motion to exclude the Stapleford declaration was granted in part. The court granted in part requests concerning the Gibson opposition declaration, the Delgado opposition declaration, Delgado Declaration Exhibit 6, and Taylor Report Exhibit
- It granted sealing for Gibson Opposition Declaration Exhibits 4 and
- It denied the request for Delgado Opposition Declaration Exhibit 11 because sealing the entire exhibit was overbroad, and it denied the request concerning the Strombom report. - For the plaintiffs’ later administrative motion, the requests concerning the plaintiffs’ reply supporting class certification and their opposition to excluding the Stapleford declaration were granted in part, with a specified exception for page 4, lines 7–8. The court denied sealing for Greenstone Declaration Exhibit V as overbroad because the testimony went directly to common proof and was essential to the merits decision. It granted sealing for Greenstone Declaration Exhibits W and AA. It granted the request concerning Stapleford Declaration Exhibit A except for portions cited in the class-certification orders. - For the defendants’ later administrative motion, the court granted sealing for the highlighted portions of Delgado Declaration Reply Exhibit
- It denied sealing for Delgado Declaration Reply Exhibit 18 and denied the request concerning the defendants’ reply brief supporting exclusion of the Stapleford report.
Deadlines and effect
The request concerning Exhibit 11 of the Delgado declaration was denied without prejudice to the defendants filing proposed limited redactions within seven days. Revised materials for the remaining documents were due within 21 days of the order. The order addressed public access to filings and did not decide the underlying class-certification motion.
Read the full 6-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.