Savor Health, LLC v. Day

Background

Savor Health, LLC and Susan Bratton, referred to together as “Savor,” moved for partial summary judgment and filed two redacted exhibits, Exhibits L and N, without first seeking the required permission. Andrea Day moved to strike the redacted documents or require Savor to file them without redactions. Savor later filed a belated motion seeking permission to keep the redactions.

The opinion states that Savor’s counsel later said Savor would not rely on Exhibit N for its summary-judgment motion, making the redaction dispute moot as to that exhibit. Exhibit L contained two attorney invoices totaling $13,365 and $13,185. Savor relied on those costs to support its position that it had suffered more than $5,000 in losses, an amount relevant to its claim under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

Legal Standard and Analysis

The court explained that judicial documents carry a strong presumption of public access, especially documents submitted to support or oppose summary judgment. A court may permit sealing or redaction only when necessary to protect a higher value and when the restriction is narrowly tailored.

Savor argued that the narrative portions of its legal and technical bills were protected by attorney-client privilege. The court recognized that privilege can sometimes overcome the presumption of public access, but stated that a party cannot use privilege as both a “shield and sword”—relying on selected privileged information to support its position while preventing an opposing party from examining information that could challenge it.

The court found that Savor relied on the total invoice amount to support its claimed losses, while the redactions prevented Day from determining what portion of the billed work related to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act claim. The court concluded that allowing the redactions would deprive Day of an opportunity to contest a factual basis for Savor’s claim.

Ruling

Judge Ronnie Abrams denied Savor’s motion to redact. The court directed the Clerk of Court to strike docket entries 168-14 and 168-16 while retaining the summary docket text. The court also directed the parties to appear for a telephone conference and stated that the summary-judgment briefing schedule was adjourned indefinitely. This order addressed access to and redaction of filings; it did not decide the merits of the underlying summary-judgment motion.