Signify North America Corporation v. Lepro Innovation Inc. ( 2024 )

1 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 2 DISTRICT OF NEVADA 3 * * * 4 SIGNIFY NORTH AMERICA Case No. 2:22-cv-02095-JAD-EJY CORPORATION and SIGNIFY 5 HOLDING B.V., 6 Plaintiffs, ORDER 7 v. 8 LEPRO INNOVATION INC., LE INNOVATION INC., INNOVATION 9 RULES INC., HOME EVER INC., and LETIANLIGHTING, INC., 10 Defendants. 11 12 Pending before the Court is Defendants’ Motion to Seal. ECF No. 161. Defendants move 13 to seal the entirety of its Motion for Summary Judgment and all exhibits as they have filed the same 14 under seal and not filed a redacted version of the Motion or the exhibits that need not be sealed on 15 the publicly available docket. 16 As the party seeking to seal a judicial record, Defendants must meet their burden of 17 overcoming the strong presumption in favor of access and public policies favoring disclosure. 18 Kamakana v. City and Cnty. of Honolulu, 447 F.3d 1172, 1178-79 (9th Cir. 2006) (holding that those 19 who seek to maintain the secrecy of documents attached to dispositive motions must meet the high 20 threshold of showing that “compelling reasons” support secrecy). Compelling reasons require a 21 demonstration that the documents to be sealed, if publicly available, would become a vehicle for 22 improper purposes, including use of records to gratify private spite, promote public scandal, 23 disseminate libelous statements, or circulate trade secrets. Nixon v. Warner Commc’ns, 435 U.S. 24 589, 598 (1978). Moreover, well-settled law establishes (1) “requests to seal must be narrowly 25 tailored” (Whitewater W. Indus., Ltd. v. Pac. Surf Designs, Inc., Case No. 3:17-cv-01118-BEN- 26 BLM, 2018 WL 3055938, at *3 (S.D. Cal. June 14, 2018); Doe v. L. Offs. of Winn & Sims, Case No. 27 06-cv-00599-H-AJB, 2021 WL 2662311, at *1 (S.D. Cal. June 29, 2021)), and (2) reliance on a 1 Inc., Case No. 2:17-cv-02869-GMN-PAL, 2019 WL 12311995, at *1 (D. Nev. Apr. 17, 2019) citing 2 Foltz v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 331 F.3d 1122, 1133 (9th Cir. 2003); Beckman Indus., Inc. 3 v. Int’l Ins. Co., 966 F.2d 470, 475-76 (9th Cir. 1992). 4 Here, Defendants state they are not the party that seeks to seal the documents presently 5 sealed; rather, it is Plaintiffs who seek to keep these exhibits from the public. 6 Accordingly, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Defendants’ Motion to Seal (ECF No. 161) is 7 GRANTED in part and DENIED in part. 8 IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Defendants must no later than November 4, 2024 file a 9 redacted version of their Motion for Summary Judgment, together with all exhibits other than 10 Exhibits B and C, on the publicly available docket. 11 IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that ECF No. 160 will remain temporarily sealed. 12 IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Plaintiffs must file a memorandum explaining why any 13 portion of Exhibits B and C must be sealed no later than November 12, 2024. 14 IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that if the entirety of Exhibits B and C need not be sealed, 15 Plaintiffs must work with Defendants to identify what should be redacted and the redacted version 16 of Exhibits B and C must be filed on the publicly available docket no later than November 12, 2024. 17 Dated this 28th day of October, 2024. 18 19 ELAYNA J. YOUCHAH 20 UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE 21 22 23 24 25 26 27