NimbeLink Corp. v. Digi International Inc.

Background

The court considered the parties’ Joint Motions for Continued Sealing. The parties agreed about the treatment of documents covered by motions at ECF Nos. 94, 95, 149, and 215. The court granted those agreed motions.

The parties disagreed about documents filed temporarily under seal in connection with Digi International Inc.’s motion to compel, addressed in the motion at ECF No. 216. NimbeLink sought continued sealing, while Digi sought unsealing. NimbeLink argued that the documents contained confidential attorney-client communications and competitively sensitive business-planning information. Digi argued that the documents did not contain confidential or competitively sensitive information warranting continued sealing.

The parties completely disagreed about documents filed temporarily under seal in connection with Digi’s motion for leave to file an amended answer and counterclaims, addressed in the motion at ECF No. 217. NimbeLink again sought continued sealing, and Digi sought unsealing.

Legal standard

The court explained that judicial records generally carry a common-law presumption of public access, but that presumption is not absolute. The weight given to public access depends in part on how important the documents were to the court’s exercise of judicial power and how useful they are to people monitoring the federal courts.

For the documents connected to the motion to compel, Magistrate Judge Foster treated public access as a relatively weak prediction because the motion was a nondispositive discovery motion that did not involve the exercise of Article III judicial power. The court concluded that NimbeLink had shown a sufficient countervailing reason to keep most of the disputed documents sealed because they raised concerns about confidential business-strategy communications. The court ordered ECF Nos. 192, 195, 195-1, 195-3, 195-4, 195-5, 195-10, and 195-11 to remain sealed, but ordered ECF No. 195-2, a scheduling email, unsealed.

For the documents connected to Digi’s motion to amend, the court gave greater weight to public access because Judge Nancy E. Brasel had granted the underlying motion. Judge Brasel had ruled from the bench and had not reached the merits of the proposed amendment because NimbeLink did not oppose the motion on futility grounds. The court also noted that some potentially confidential information had been discussed in open court and that the transcript was scheduled to become publicly accessible on May 21, 2024. Neither party sought redactions to that transcript.

Ruling

The order states that the agreed Joint Motions at ECF Nos. 94, 95, 149, and 215 are GRANTED. It states that the 216 Motion and 217 Motion are GRANTED IN PART and DENIED IN PART.

The clerk was directed to unseal, 28 days after the order unless a timely motion for further consideration was filed, ECF Nos. 98, 159, 161, 161-1, 161-2, 174, 179, 186-7, 195-2, and 204-7.

The clerk was directed to keep under seal ECF Nos. 65, 68-1, 72, 83, 90, 126, 129-1, 129-2, 129-3, 129-4, 161-3, 161-4, 161-5, 161-6, 161-7, 177, 183, 186, 186-1, 186-2, 186-3, 186-4, 186-5, 186-6, 186-8, 186-9, 192, 195, 195-1, 195-3, 195-4, 195-5, 195-6, 195-7, 195-8, 195-9, 195-10, 195-11, 201, 204, 204-1, 204-2, 204-3, 204-4, 204-5, and 204-6.

The parties were ordered to file versions with the proposed redactions identified in the relevant sealing motion for ECF Nos. 68, 68-2, 75, and 86 within 28 days. If they failed to do so, the court stated that it would order the clerk to unseal those documents. The court also noted that documents kept sealed under this order could later be unsealed if they became important to a later dispositive ruling by Judge Brasel.