Ramos v. Apple Inc.

Background

The named plaintiffs—Raven Ramos, Jeffrey McNeill, and Tyler O’Neal—and Apple Inc. anticipated that discovery would involve confidential, proprietary, trade-secret, and commercially sensitive information. They submitted a draft stipulated protective order under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(c), which permits a court to limit disclosure or use of discovery materials for good cause.

Protective-order rules

The order permits a party to designate discovery materials as either “CONFIDENTIAL” or “CONFIDENTIAL—ATTORNEYS’ EYES ONLY.” Materials covered by the order may generally be used only for this case or a related appeal, not for other litigation, business purposes, patent matters, or competitive purposes. The order does not provide automatic protection for every discovery disclosure, and designations must be made with a good-faith basis.

“CONFIDENTIAL” materials may be shared with specified outside counsel, up to three designated representatives of the receiving party, qualifying experts and consultants, court personnel, certain litigation-support personnel, mediators, witnesses who sign the required agreement, and other authorized recipients. “CONFIDENTIAL—ATTORNEYS’ EYES ONLY” materials are subject to stricter limits and generally may be shared only with qualifying outside counsel, experts and consultants, court personnel, specified litigation-support personnel, mediators, and other approved recipients.

The order establishes procedures for marking documents, native electronic files, depositions, and testimony. A party may challenge a confidentiality designation in writing after conferring in good faith; until the designating party withdraws the designation or the court changes it, the material remains protected. The order also addresses source-code requests, secure storage in the United States, export restrictions, data-breach notices, subpoenas, filing protected materials, inadvertent production of privileged information, and inadvertent failures to designate material properly.

Within 90 days after final disposition, each party must return or destroy the producing party’s discovery materials at that party’s option, subject to limited archival retention by outside counsel. The confidentiality obligations continue after the case ends, and the court retains jurisdiction to resolve disputes arising from the protective order.

Ruling

The court found good cause for the requested protections and entered the stipulated protective order. The order was signed by Nelson S. Roman, U.S. District Judge, on December 14, 2023. The text does not decide the parties’ underlying claims.