Day v. GEICO Casualty Company
- Beth Freeman
- 5:21-cv-02103
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
In Day v. GEICO Casualty Company, Judge Freeman granted GEICO’s motion to keep Exhibit 5 sealed because it contained confidential internal business information.
GEICO Casualty Company, GEICO Indemnity Company, and GEICO General Insurance Company, whose Exhibit 5 remains unavailable to the public under seal.
What happened
In Day v. GEICO Casualty Company, Jessica Day asked the court to consider whether materials filed with her opposition to GEICO’s summary-judgment motion should remain sealed. The court had previously denied sealing Exhibit 5 but allowed GEICO to file a renewed request.
GEICO asked the court to keep Exhibit 5 sealed in full. GEICO said the exhibit contained highly confidential internal models and projections, and that disclosure of its decision-making information could give competitors an unfair advantage. The court reviewed the exhibit, which was an email chain discussing GEICO’s internal models and projections, and found compelling reasons to keep it sealed. The court also found that GEICO’s request was narrowly tailored.
Judge Freeman granted GEICO’s renewed motion to maintain Exhibit 5 under seal. The order concerned only public access to that exhibit and did not decide the parties’ underlying dispute or GEICO’s summary-judgment motion.
The detailed version
- Day v. GEICO Casualty Company · No. 5:21-cv-02103
- Beth Freeman
- Dec. 8, 2023
Background
Jessica Day filed an administrative motion concerning materials that she had provisionally filed under seal in support of her opposition to a motion for summary judgment filed by GEICO Casualty Company, GEICO Indemnity Company, and GEICO General Insurance Company. Day stated that she did not oppose sealing the information or documents at issue.
The court initially granted the sealing request except as to Exhibit 5. It denied sealing that exhibit without prejudice to GEICO filing a renewed motion. GEICO then filed the renewed administrative motion asking the court to maintain Exhibit 5 under seal in its entirety.
Legal Standard
Because Exhibit 5 was filed in connection with an opposition to a summary-judgment motion, the court applied the heightened “compelling reasons” standard for sealing judicial records. The court also applied the local rule requiring sealing requests to be narrowly tailored to seal only material that qualifies for protection.
Court’s Analysis
GEICO argued that Exhibit 5 contained internal modeling and projection techniques that it treated as highly confidential and sensitive. GEICO further argued that public disclosure of information about its decision-making calculations would give competitors an unfair advantage.
After reviewing Exhibit 5, which consisted of an email chain discussing GEICO’s internal models and projections, the court found compelling reasons to keep the document sealed. The court also found GEICO’s request to seal the entire exhibit sufficiently narrowly tailored.
Disposition
The court granted GEICO’s renewed motion to maintain Exhibit 5 under seal. This order addressed the sealing of Exhibit 5 and did not rule on the underlying summary-judgment motion.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.