Day v. GEICO Casualty Company
- Beth Freeman
- 5:21-cv-02103
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 3
In Day v. GEICO, Judge Freeman denied without prejudice a request to seal an exhibit and brief references because GEICO did not support confidentiality under the local rule.
Jessica Day and GEICO Casualty Company; the order concerned whether specified portions of Day’s opposition brief and an exhibit would remain sealed.
What happened
In Day v. GEICO Casualty Company, Jessica Day asked the court to keep an exhibit and a reference to that exhibit in her opposition brief from public view. GEICO had previously labeled the materials confidential.
The court explained that GEICO had to file a statement or declaration supporting secrecy within seven days under the court’s local rule. GEICO did not file one by the time of the order, so the court found that sealing was not justified for either document.
Judge Beth Labson Freeman denied Day’s sealing motion without prejudice. The court also required GEICO to meet the rule’s filing deadline and directed Day to file unredacted versions publicly if GEICO did not submit the required support.
The detailed version
- Day v. GEICO Casualty Company · No. 5:21-cv-02103
- Beth Freeman
- Oct. 16, 2023
Background
Jessica Day filed an administrative motion under Civil Local Rule 79-5(f), asking the court to consider whether materials designated confidential by GEICO Casualty Company should be sealed. The motion concerned highlighted portions of Day’s opposition to GEICO’s motion to reconsider abstention of jurisdiction and the entire fourth exhibit supporting that opposition. It also concerned Day’s reference in the opposition brief to the exhibit’s contents.
Legal standard and procedure
The court explained that judicial records and documents are generally available for public inspection. Materials more than tangentially related to the merits of a case may be sealed only for “compelling reasons,” while materials only tangentially related to the merits may be sealed upon a showing of “good cause.”
Under Local Rule 79-5(f), when a party seeks to seal material because another party designated it confidential, the designating party must file a supporting statement or declaration within seven days. The designating party’s failure to do so may result in the document being unsealed. A response may be filed within four days.
Court’s ruling
Day filed the motion on October 2, 2023, making GEICO’s supporting statement or declaration due on October 9, 2023. The court found that GEICO had not filed the required statement or declaration by the date of the order. It therefore found that sealing was not warranted.
The court ruled as follows:
- The request to seal the highlighted portions of Day’s opposition to GEICO’s motion to reconsider abstention of jurisdiction was denied for failure to comply with Civil Local Rule 79-5(f)(3). - The request to seal the entire fourth exhibit supporting that opposition was denied for the same reason. - Day’s administrative motion to consider whether another party’s material should be sealed was denied without prejudice.
The order also provided a seven-day period for GEICO to file the required statement or declaration. If GEICO did not do so, Day was required, within three days after GEICO’s deadline passed and without another court order, to file unredacted versions of the documents on the public docket.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.