Navigators Insurance Company v. Goyard, Inc.

Background

The parties, through counsel, jointly requested a protective order under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(c). They sought to protect nonpublic and competitively sensitive information that might be disclosed during discovery. The court found good cause for an appropriately limited order covering the pretrial phase of the case.

Protective-order requirements

The order defines “Discovery Material” as information of any kind produced or disclosed during discovery. A producing party may designate material as “Confidential” only when it reasonably and in good faith believes the material includes previously undisclosed information such as financial information, ownership or control information concerning a nonpublic company, business plans, product-development information, marketing plans, or personal or intimate information. The order also permits the court to grant confidential status to other categories later.

People subject to the order generally may not disclose confidential discovery material except as the order permits. Permitted recipients include the parties and their insurers, counsel and their support staff, outside vendors working on the case, mediators or arbitrators, certain people identified in documents, potential witnesses, experts and specialized advisers, deposition stenographers, and the court. Witnesses, experts, mediators, and arbitrators must first receive the order and sign a nondisclosure agreement.

The order requires public redacted filings and sealed unredacted copies when confidential material is filed with the court. A party challenging a confidentiality designation may give written notice identifying the grounds for the objection. The parties may also request additional disclosure limits, such as attorneys’-eyes-only treatment, and must bring unresolved disputes to the court under its individual practices.

Use, privilege, and return of materials

Recipients may use confidential discovery material only to prosecute or defend this action and related appeals—not for business, commercial, competitive, or other litigation purposes. The order does not waive objections to discovery, privileges, or trial-admissibility objections.

If privileged or work-product material is inadvertently disclosed, the disclosure does not waive the protection. After a claim of inadvertent disclosure, the receiving party must return or destroy the material within five business days and certify that it did so. The producing party must then provide a privilege log, and the receiving party may ask the court to order production. The producing party retains the burden of establishing privilege or work-product protection.

Within 60 days after final disposition of the action, including appeals, recipients must return confidential material or destroy it with the producing party’s permission and certify that they retained no copies or summaries. Counsel specifically retained for the case may keep archival copies of specified case-related materials, but those copies remain subject to the order. The order continues after the litigation ends, and the court retains jurisdiction to enforce it and impose contempt sanctions.

Ruling

Judge Alison J. Nathan entered the stipulated protective order. The opinion does not decide the parties’ underlying claims or defenses; it governs the handling of discovery information during and after the litigation.