eCardless Bancorp, Ltd. v. PayPal Holdings, Inc.

Background

The case was transferred from the Western District of Texas to the Northern District of California. Before a May 2, 2024 case-management conference, the parties filed a joint case-management statement. eCardless Bancorp, Ltd. also filed an administrative motion to seal parts of that statement.

On April 29, 2024, the court denied the sealing motion. It explained that court records are generally open to the public, that the proposed explanations did not adequately justify sealing, that the proposed redactions were not narrow enough, and that some of the information did not appear confidential. The court gave eCardless until May 6 to file a renewed sealing motion.

Motion and ruling

eCardless did not file a renewed sealing motion. Instead, it filed a second joint case-management statement that omitted the information contained in the first statement and asked the court to remove the first statement from the docket. The court noted that eCardless did not explain why the first statement was incorrectly filed or provide a basis for sealing any part of it.

The court characterized the request as an improper motion to reconsider the earlier sealing decision and as an attempt to keep the first statement under seal without satisfying the applicable sealing standards. Judge Beth Labson Freeman denied the motion at ECF No. 126 and struck the filing at ECF No. 127. The court allowed eCardless to file a renewed administrative motion to seal information in the original joint case-management statement by May 10, 2024, at 12:00 p.m.