Ucharima Alvarado v. Western Range Association ( 2024 )

1 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 2 DISTRICT OF NEVADA 3 * * * 4 CIRILO UCHARIMA ALVARADO, Case No. 3:22-CV-00249-MMD-CLB 5 Plaintiff, ORDER DENYING MOTION TO SEAL 6 v. [ECF No. 225] 7 WESTERN RANGE ASSOCIATION, et al., 8 Defendants. 9 10 Before the Court is Plaintiff Cirilo Ucharima Alvarado’s (“Plaintiff”) motion for leave 11 to file second amended complaint provisionally under seal. (ECF No. 225.) Plaintiff seeks 12 to provisionally file portions of his second amended complaint under seal because 13 portions of the complaint include information from documents that were designated 14 “Confidential” by Defendants Western Range Association and/or Ellison Ranching 15 Company (collectively referred to as “Defendants”). (Id.) However, Plaintiff does not 16 believe any of the quoted material in the complaint satisfies the stringent legal standard 17 required to maintain material under seal. No opposition or response was filed by 18 Defendants. 19 If a party seeks to file a document under seal, there are two possible standards the 20 party must address: the compelling reasons standard or the good cause standard. See 21 Ctr. for Auto Safety v. Chrysler Grp., LLC, 809 F.3d 1092, 1096-97 (9th Cir. 2016). The 22 choice between the two standards depends on whether the documents proposed for 23 sealing accompany a motion that is “more than tangentially related” to the merits of the 24 case. Id. at 1099. If it is more than tangentially related, the compelling reasons standard 25 26 applies. If not, the good cause standard applies. Ctr. for Auto Safety, 809 F.3d at 1102. 27 Under the compelling reasons standard, “a court may seal records only when it 28 finds ‘a compelling reason and articulate[s] the factual basis for its ruling, without relying 1| on hypothesis or conjecture.” United States v. Carpenter, 923 F.3d 1172, 1179 (9th Cir. 2 | 2019) (quoting Ctr. for Auto Safety, 809 F.3d at 1096-97) (alteration in original). Finding 3} acompelling reason is “best left to the sound discretion” of the Court. Ctr. for Auto Safety, 809 F.3d at 1097 (quoting Nixon v. Warner Commce’ns, Inc., 435 U.S. 589, 599 (1978)). 9 Plaintiff's sealing request contains information that is subject to a protective order 6 | inthis case. However, Plaintiff does not believe any of the quoted material in the complaint 7 | satisfies the stringent legal standard required to maintain material under seal. Based on this, and Defendants’ lack of response, the Court finds that compelling reasons do not 9 justify sealing portions of the second amended complaint and therefore, the motion to seal (ECF No. 225) is DENIED. 11 IT IS SO ORDERED. 12 DATED: October 15, 2024 13 ‘ 14 15 UNITED STATES '\MAGISTRATE JUDGE 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28