Homeward Residential, Inc. v. Sand Canyon Corporation

Background

On November 9, 2020, the Court entered summary judgment for Sand Canyon Corporation. It then ordered the parties to show why filings connected with their competing summary-judgment motions and expert-evidence motions should remain sealed or redacted. The parties responded with letters dated November 30, 2020.

Orders on filing and sealing

The Court approved the parties’ proposed sealing and redaction requests for substantially the reasons stated in their letters. It ordered Homeward Residential to file:

- Forty “Category 1” documents without redactions. - Two hundred ninety-seven “Category 2” documents, excluding documents also designated as “Category 6,” with the limited redactions described in its letter. - Six “Category 3” documents with the redactions described in its letter.

It ordered Sand Canyon to file:

- One hundred thirty-two documents listed in Table 4 without redactions. - One hundred one documents listed in Table 3 with the minimal redactions described in its letter.

The Court also ruled that two “Category 4” documents and 510 “Category 5” documents identified by Homeward Residential, along with 778 documents in Sand Canyon’s Table 1 and 40 documents in its Table 2, should remain sealed in their entirety.

Remaining documents and deadlines

The parties identified additional documents that had been sealed or redacted at the other party’s request, but for which the filing party did not take a position on confidentiality. The Court ordered the parties to confer about those documents. In filings due January 14, 2021, the party that filed each document had to include any document that the original designating party no longer believed needed confidentiality, subject to the specific exceptions stated in the order.

If either party believed that any of those documents should remain sealed in whole or in part, the party had to submit a letter by January 4, 2021, identifying the documents and explaining the basis for continued sealing. The order therefore governed public filing, redaction, and continued sealing of the identified documents; it did not alter the earlier summary-judgment ruling.