Simpson v. Bayer Healthcare
- Elizabeth Cowan Wright
- 0:08-cv-05758
- U.S. District Court · District of Minnesota
- 8
Simpson v. Bayer Corp.: Judge Wright kept sensitive discovery materials sealed but ordered exhibit lists unsealed, granting in part and denying in part the joint motion.
The ruling affected Laurie M. Simpson, Bayer Corp. and the other defendants, and the public’s access to documents filed in the case.
What happened
In Simpson v. Bayer Corp., the parties asked the District of Minnesota to decide which documents connected to a motion to quash deposition subpoenas should remain sealed. The dispute involved memoranda, deposition transcripts, interrogatory answers, and exhibit lists.
Defendants argued that the documents contained confidential business information, customer names, product and medicine data, unpublished clinical studies, and confidential communications. The relator argued that the information was too old to cause competitive harm, including information about Baycol, which had been withdrawn from the U.S. market nearly twenty years earlier. The court concluded that the defendants’ confidentiality interests outweighed the public’s interest in access at this stage because the documents concerned a discovery motion rather than a motion deciding the case.
Judge Wright granted in part and denied in part the joint motion. She ordered Docket Entries 240, 243-1 through 243-8, 251, and 254-1 through 254-3 to remain under seal, but ordered Docket Entries 243 and 254 unsealed under the court’s local procedures. She stated that the decision would not determine whether the information could remain sealed if later filed with and considered by the court on a motion deciding the case.
The detailed version
- Simpson v. Bayer Healthcare · No. 0:08-cv-05758
- Elizabeth Cowan Wright
- May 11, 2021
Background
The court considered the parties’ Joint Motion Regarding Continued Sealing under District of Minnesota Local Rule 5.6(d). The documents had been filed in connection with Defendants’ Motion to Quash Relator’s Deposition Subpoenas.
The parties did not address whether Docket Entries 243 and 254, which listed the exhibits at issue, should remain sealed. The court found no basis to keep those entries sealed because they revealed no substantive information. The parties disagreed about continued sealing for Docket Entries 240, 243-1, 243-2, 243-3, 243-4, 243-5, 243-6, 243-7, 243-8, 251, 254-1, 254-2, and 254-3. Those entries included legal memoranda, deposition transcripts, and interrogatory answers.
Legal standard
The court explained that judicial records generally carry a common-law presumption of public access. That right is not absolute, so the court must balance the public’s interest in access against the interests served by confidentiality. The court considered the six factors used by District of Minnesota courts: the need for public access; prior public access; any objection to disclosure and the objector’s identity; asserted property and privacy interests; possible prejudice from disclosure; and the purposes for which the documents were introduced.
The court also explained that the weight of the public-access presumption depends on how closely the documents relate to the court’s exercise of its judicial power. Documents filed with a motion concerning discovery receive less weight than documents filed with a motion resolving the merits of a case. The documents here were connected to a discovery motion, not a motion deciding the underlying action.
Parties’ positions and analysis
Defendants argued that the redacted portions and sealed exhibits contained nonpublic and commercially sensitive information about Bayer’s business practices, including customer names, proprietary information about products and medicines, unpublished clinical studies, and information submitted to the government that was otherwise exempt from public disclosure. Defendants also pointed to confidential deposition testimony about communications between Bayer and the Department of Defense. They stated that the testimony and interrogatory responses had been designated confidential in earlier litigation and again when the relator requested them in this action.
The relator argued that the information was too old to cause competitive harm, including information about Baycol, a medication withdrawn from the U.S. market nearly twenty years earlier.
The court found that the information had not previously been publicly available and that Defendants had consistently sought to protect it from disclosure. The court also found that the documents contained commercially sensitive information concerning communications with customers about Defendants’ products. Although the information concerned a drug withdrawn from the market two decades earlier, the court reasoned that this also reduced the public’s immediate need for access to information about that medication. Considering the possible prejudice to Defendants and the fact that the documents related to a discovery motion, the court concluded that Defendants’ interests in continued sealing outweighed the public’s right of access at that time.
Disposition
Judge Elizabeth Cowan Wright ordered that the Joint Motion Regarding Continued Sealing was GRANTED in part and DENIED in part. The motion was granted insofar as Docket Entries 240, 243-1, 243-2, 243-3, 243-4, 243-5, 243-6, 243-7, 243-8, 251, 254-1, 254-2, and 254-3 would remain under seal. The motion was denied insofar as Docket Entries 243 and 254 would be unsealed under Local Rule 5.6(d).
The court emphasized that this ruling did not determine whether the information would remain sealed in the future if it were filed with and considered by the court in connection with a future dispositive motion.
Read the full 8-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.