Taylor Corporation v. Georgia-Pacific Consumer Products LP

Background

The parties filed a joint motion asking the court to keep three documents—ECF Nos. 128, 128-1, and 128-2—under seal. The documents had been temporarily sealed in connection with a declaration opposing Georgia-Pacific’s motion in limine. The court struck the parties’ first motion because it did not adequately explain why the documents should be protected from public filing. The parties later refiled the motion.

In the refiled motion, the parties no longer agreed about sealing. Taylor argued that ECF No. 128 contained contractual terms, pricing information, and other confidential, competitively sensitive information. Taylor argued that ECF Nos. 128-1 and 128-2 contained confidential business-planning information and had previously been sealed by court order. Georgia-Pacific argued that all three documents should be unsealed because there was no longer good cause to keep them sealed given the approaching public trial.

Legal Standard

The court explained that judicial records generally carry a common-law right of public access, although that right is not absolute. Courts must balance the public’s interest in access against the interests served by keeping information confidential. Under District of Minnesota Local Rule 5.6, information filed with the court should not remain sealed unless the need for confidentiality outweighs the public’s qualified right of access.

Ruling

After reviewing the documents, the court found that they contained highly sensitive contractual, pricing, business-planning, and other competitively sensitive information. The court concluded that Taylor’s need to maintain confidentiality outweighed the public’s right of access. Magistrate Judge Tony N. Leung therefore granted the Joint Motion for Continued Sealing, ECF No. 138, and directed the clerk to keep ECF Nos. 128, 128-1, and 128-2 sealed.