Sanderlin v. City of San Jose
- Beth Freeman
- 5:20-cv-04824
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 3
In Sanderlin v. City of San Jose, Judge Freeman granted the parties’ motion to seal personal information in interrogatory responses.
The ruling affects the parties to the case and limits public access to specified personal information in Joseph Stukes’s interrogatory responses.
What happened
In Sanderlin v. City of San Jose, the parties asked the court to seal specified information in one plaintiff’s interrogatory responses, which had been submitted with the defendants’ summary-judgment motion.
The court granted the stipulated motion. It allowed redaction of the plaintiff’s current address, his spouse’s name and address, prior employment information, and current employment location.
Judge Freeman concluded that the information had minimal relevance to the case and that the requested redactions were narrowly tailored to the personal information identified.
The detailed version
- Sanderlin v. City of San Jose · No. 5:20-cv-04824
- Beth Freeman
- Jan. 12, 2023
Background
The parties filed a stipulated administrative motion to seal information in Plaintiff Joseph Stukes’s responses to the City of San Jose’s second set of interrogatories. The responses were attached as an exhibit to the declaration supporting Defendants’ motion for summary judgment.
The parties sought to seal specified portions containing Stukes’s current address, his spouse’s name and current address, prior employment information, and the location of his current employment. They identified the specific pages and lines to be redacted and agreed that the information should be sealed.
Court’s analysis
Because the material was attached to a summary-judgment motion, the court applied the “compelling reasons” standard for sealing judicial records. The court noted that the redacted information had minimal relevance to the case. It also found that the request was narrowly tailored because it sought to redact only the identified personal information.
Ruling
The court granted the stipulated sealing motion. It separately granted each proposed redaction covering Stukes’s current address; his spouse’s name and current address; and his prior employment information and current employment location. Judge Beth Labson Freeman signed the order.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.