Kelley v. AW Distributing, Inc.

Background

The plaintiffs filed an administrative motion to seal exhibits attached to their opposition to Daiho Sangyo’s motion for summary judgment. The Wal-Mart Defendants designated Exhibit B as confidential and later agreed to remove confidentiality designations from some documents. The AW Defendants designated Exhibit I as confidential but did not file a response to the sealing motion. The Wal-Mart Defendants nevertheless addressed why portions of Exhibit I should remain sealed.

Legal standard

Because the summary-judgment motion was more than tangentially related to the merits of the case, the court applied the “compelling reasons” standard for sealing judicial records. Under that standard, sealing may be justified when court records could be used for improper purposes or disclose trade secrets, but embarrassment, possible incrimination, or possible additional litigation alone is not enough.

Ruling

The court found that the Wal-Mart Defendants’ response demonstrated compelling reasons to seal documents, or portions of documents, that they had not de-designated as confidential. The court also noted that it did not need to rely on many of the documents to resolve the summary-judgment motion, reducing the public interest in access to those materials.

The court therefore granted, in part, and denied, in part the plaintiffs’ administrative motion to seal. It ordered the plaintiffs and the Wal-Mart Defendants to meet and confer as required by the local rules before the plaintiffs filed revised redacted versions of the exhibits in the public record.