Pietres v. Nestle Purina Petcare Company
- Philip Halpern
- 7:23-cv-08959
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 10
In Pietres v. Nestle Purina Petcare Company, Judge Halpern issued a stipulated protective order governing confidential discovery.
The parties, their counsel and representatives, experts, consultants, vendors, witnesses, mediators or arbitrators, third parties providing discovery, and other people subject to the protective order.
What happened
Adrienne Pietres and Brenda Natolit brought this case against Nestle Purina Petcare Company, and the parties asked the court to protect nonpublic and competitively sensitive information exchanged during discovery. The parties agreed to the proposed terms through their lawyers.
The order limits what may be labeled confidential, restricts disclosure to specified people, and requires nondisclosure agreements for certain witnesses, experts, and mediators. It also governs sealed court filings, objections to confidentiality designations, use of the information, inadvertent disclosure of privileged material, and the return or destruction of confidential materials after the case ends.
The court found good cause and ordered the stipulated confidentiality and protective order on April 4, 2024. Judge Philip M. Halpern stated that violations could be punished as contempt and that the court would retain jurisdiction to enforce the order.
The detailed version
- Pietres v. Nestle Purina Petcare Company · No. 7:23-cv-08959
- Philip Halpern
- Apr. 4, 2024
Background
Adrienne Pietres and Brenda Natolit are listed as plaintiffs, individually and on behalf of others similarly situated. Nestle Purina Petcare Company is listed as the defendant. The parties, through counsel, jointly requested a protective order under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(c) for nonpublic and competitively sensitive information that might be disclosed during discovery.
Protective-order terms
The order allows a producing party to designate only material that it reasonably and in good faith believes includes certain previously undisclosed financial information, ownership or control information concerning a nonpublic company, business plans, product-development or marketing information, personal or intimate information, or another category later given confidential status by the court.
People subject to the order generally may not disclose designated confidential discovery material except to listed recipients, including the parties, counsel, certain vendors, the court, specified witnesses, experts, and mediators or arbitrators. Witnesses, experts, and mediators or arbitrators must first receive the order and sign a nondisclosure agreement. Confidential material may be used only to prosecute or defend this case and related appeals, not for business, competitive, commercial, or other litigation purposes.
The order also sets procedures for marking confidential material, handling deposition testimony, challenging confidentiality designations, requesting additional restrictions such as attorneys’ eyes only, and filing confidential material with the court. A party filing such material must publicly file a redacted version and place the unredacted version under seal. The court warned that it may unseal documents if the required particularized findings are not made and said it is unlikely to keep material confidential when it is introduced as evidence at trial.
The order addresses accidentally disclosed attorney-client privileged or attorney-work-product material. The receiving party must return or destroy the material within five business days after notice, while the producing party must provide a privilege log. The receiving party may ask the court to require production, and the producing party retains the burden of showing that the material is privileged or protected. Within 60 days after the final disposition of the case, including appeals, recipients must return or, with the producing party’s permission, destroy confidential material and certify that they have done so. Attorneys retained for the case may keep certain archival materials, which remain subject to the order.
Ruling
The court found good cause for an appropriately tailored confidentiality order governing the pretrial phase and ordered the parties and other covered persons to follow its terms. The order states that violations may result in contempt sanctions, survives the end of the litigation, and leaves the court with jurisdiction to enforce its obligations. Judge Philip M. Halpern signed the order on April 4, 2024.
Read the full 10-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.