Day v. GEICO Casualty Company ( 2023 )

1 2 3 4 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 5 NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 6 7 JESSICA DAY, Case No. 21-cv-02103-BLF 8 Plaintiff, ORDER GRANTING DEFENDANTS’ 9 v. RENEWED ADMINISTRATIVE MOTION TO MAINTAIN UNDER 10 GEICO CASUALTY COMPANY, et al., SEAL 11 Defendants. Re: ECF Nos. 189, 204, 206 12 On October 20, 2023, Plaintiff Jessica Day (“Plaintiff”) filed an Administrative Motion to 13 Consider Whether Another Party’s Material Should be Sealed regarding the brief and exhibits 14 Plaintiff filed provisionally under seal in support of her opposition to Defendants GEICO Casualty 15 Company, GEICO Indemnity Company, and GEICO General Insurance Company’s (together, 16 “GEICO” or “Defendants”) motion for summary judgment on Plaintiff’s operative complaint. See 17 Admin. Mot., ECF No. 189. Plaintiff indicated in her motion that she did not oppose sealing any 18 of the information or documents at issue. See Proposed Order, ECF No. 189-2. On October 27, 19 2023, Defendants filed a statement pursuant to Civil Local Rule 79-5(f)(3) regarding their position 20 on sealing the documents and information at issue. Defs.’ Statement Re Sealing (“Statement”) ¶ 21 3, ECF No. 119. The Statement did not present a position on one of the documents at issue, i.e., 22 Exhibit 5 to Plaintiff’s opposition brief (“Exhibit 5”). See generally id. 23 The Court granted the initial motion except with respect to Exhibit 5, for which it denied 24 sealing without prejudice to Defendants filing a renewed motion to maintain under seal. See 25 Order, ECF No. 204. On December 7, 2023, Defendants filed the pending Renewed 26 Administrative Motion to Maintain Under Seal (the “Motion”), in which they request that the 27 Court maintain Exhibit 5 under seal in its entirety. See ECF No. 206. 1 filed in connection with an opposition to a summary judgment motion. See Kamakana v. City & 2 Cnty. of Honolulu, 447 F.3d 1172, 1178-79 (9th Cir. 2006) (noting compelling reasons standard 3 applies to documents related to motion for summary judgment). In addition, the Local Rules of 4 || this Court require that all requests to seal be “narrowly tailored to seek sealing only of sealable 5 material.” Civ. L.R. 79-5(a). 6 Defendants assert that Exhibit 5 includes internal modeling and projection techniques that 7 GEICO treats as highly confidential and with extreme sensitivity, and that public disclosure of 8 || such information about GEICO’s decision-making calculus would provide competitors an unfair 9 advantage. See Motion 2; Lepinskas Decl. {| 4-5, ECF No. 206-1.! Having reviewed Exhibit 5, 10 || which consists of an email chain discussing GEICO’s internal models and projections, the Court 11 finds that compelling reasons exist to maintain the document under seal. See In re Elec. Arts, Inc., 12 || 298 F. App’x. 568, 569 (9th Cir. 2008) (finding compelling reasons for sealing “business 13 information that might harm a litigant’s competitive strategy,” including confidential contract 14 terms); In re Google Location Hist. Litig., 514 F. Supp. 3d 1147, 1162 (N.D. Cal. Jan. 25, 2021) 3 15 (“Compelling reasons may exist to seal ‘trade secrets, marketing strategies, product development a 16 || plans, detailed product-specific financial information, customer information, internal reports[.]”’”) 3 17 (citation omitted); In re Qualcomm Litig., No. 3:17-CV-0108-GPC-MDD, 2017 WL 5176922, at 18 *2 (S.D. Cal. Nov. 8, 2017) (finding financial information and business strategies satisfy the 19 || heightened “compelling reasons” standard for granting administrative motion to seal). The Court 20 || further finds Defendants’ request to be sufficiently narrowly tailored. 21 Accordingly, the Court GRANTS Defendants’ Motion to maintain Exhibit 5 under seal. 22 IT IS SO ORDERED. 23 Dated: December 8, 2023 24 filnfaiachian □ eth Labson Freeman 25 United States District Judge 26 27 ' Although Mr. Lepinskas’s declaration states that “good cause” exists to seal Exhibit 5, see 28 xepinskas Decl. §] 4, Defendants’ Motion applies the correct “compelling reasons” standard, see