Agrigenetics, Inc. v. Semillas Papalotla, S.A. de C.V.

Background

Agrigenetics, Inc. filed a complaint seeking a declaration and a preliminary injunction. In connection with its preliminary-injunction motion, it filed declarations and exhibits under seal. Agrigenetics and Semillas Papalotla, S.A. de C.V. both asked the court to keep those materials sealed in their entirety.

The underlying dispute concerns whether the claim at issue is subject to arbitration and what certain contract provisions mean. The court therefore considered whether the filed materials were judicial documents—that is, materials relevant to the court’s judicial function and useful in resolving the dispute—and whether the public’s right to inspect court records was outweighed by competing interests.

Ruling

The court granted the sealing requests only to the extent described in the order. It held that the statement of claim in the arbitration proceeding and its exhibits, filed as pages 2 through 122 of Docket Entry 12-1, did not address arbitrability or the meaning of the relevant contract provisions. Because their contents were irrelevant to the narrow question before the court, they were not judicial documents subject to the public-access right. The court granted Semillas Papalotla’s request to keep those materials sealed because the parties agreed they were commercially sensitive. Access remained limited to counsel for Agrigenetics and counsel for Semillas Papalotla.

The court also granted sealing for portions of Docket Entries 12-2, 20-1, 20-2, 21-1, and 21-2, but only where they identified the specific hybrids involved in the underlying claim or disclosed information from which those hybrids could readily be identified. The court found that this commercial information was not at issue and that its sensitivity outweighed the presumption of public access. It required redaction rather than complete sealing of those documents.

Required Filings and Effect

Agrigenetics was ordered to file public versions of the specified documents with the hybrid-identifying information redacted, electronically linked to the preliminary-injunction motion. It also had to file unredacted versions under seal, with the redactions highlighted. The deadline was February 21, 2020, at 5 p.m. The previously filed unredacted versions were to remain under seal, accessible only to counsel for the two parties. The order resolved Docket Entries 11, 19, and 23. Judge Laura Taylor Swain did not decide the underlying arbitrability dispute in this order.