Conner v. Quora, Inc., a Delaware corporation

3 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 4 NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 5 SAN JOSE DIVISION JERI CONNOR, Case No. 18-cv-07597-BLF 8 Plaintiff, ORDER GRANTING QUORA'S 9 v. MOTION TO FILE DOCUMENTS UNDER SEAL 10 QUORA, INC., [Re: ECF 190] 11 Defendant.

13 Before the Court is Defendant Quora’s motion to file under seal certain portions of a transcript submitted in support of its opposition to Plaintiff’s motion for relief from nondispositive pretrial order of the magistrate judge, see ECF 189, and a privilege log. See Mot., ECF 190.

16 Plaintiff Jeri Connor did not file an opposition. For the reasons stated below, Defendant’s motion is GRANTED.

18 I. LEGAL STANDARD 19 “Historically, courts have recognized a ‘general right to inspect and copy public records and documents, including judicial records and documents.’” Kamakana v. City and County of Honolulu, 447 F.3d 1172, 1178 (9th Cir. 2006) (quoting Nixon v. Warner Commc’ns, Inc., 435 22 U.S. 589, 597 n.7 (1978)). Consequently, filings that are “more than tangentially related to the merits of a case” may be sealed only upon a showing of “compelling reasons” for sealing. Ctr. for Auto Safety v. Chrysler Grp., LLC, 809 F.3d 1092, 1101-02 (9th Cir. 2016). Filings that are only tangentially related to the merits may be sealed upon a lesser showing of “good cause.” Id. at 1097.

27 Sealing motions filed in this district also must be “narrowly tailored to seek sealing only of Local Rule 79-6(d), the submitting party must attach a “proposed order that is narrowly tailored to seal only the sealable material” which “lists in table format each document or portion thereof that is sought to be sealed.” In addition, a party moving to seal a document in whole or in part must file a declaration establishing that the identified material is “sealable.” Civ. L.R. 79-5(d)(1)(A).

5 “Reference to a stipulation or protective order that allows a party to designate certain documents as confidential is not sufficient to establish that a document, or portions thereof, are sealable.” Id. 7 II. DISCUSSION 8 Documents containing commercially sensitive information have been held sealable in this Circuit. See, e.g., In re Elec. Arts, Inc., 298 F. App’x 568, 569 (9th Cir. 2008) (sealing exhibit containing trade secrets and adopting definition of trade secret as “any formula, pattern, device or compilation of information which is used in one’s business, and which gives him an opportunity to obtain an advantage over competitors who do not know or use it”). The Court has reviewed Defendant’s sealing motion and the declaration submitted in support thereof. The Court finds that Defendant has articulated compelling reasons to seal certain portions of the transcript and privilege log. The proposed redactions are generally narrowly tailored. The Court’s rulings on the sealing request is set forth in the table below.

17 ECF No. Document to be Sealed Result Reasoning 189-3 Tr. of Griffin Dep. GRANTED as to the This document portions of the contains 19 document highlighted commercially at: sensitive and non- 20 28:1-25; public information.

42:1-18; Decl. of Rebekah S.

21 49:1-23; Guyon (“Guyon 50:9-25; Decl.”) ¶ 2, ECF 190- 51:6-25; 2. Additionally, it 23 52:1-25; contains information 58:1-5; 11-16; 19-22; regarding Quora’s 24 95:1-13; 22-25 investigation into the data breach incident 25 that could be used by a bad actor to exploit and breach Quora’s 27 systems. Decl. of Zhe Fu (“Fu Decl.”) ¶ 5, 188-1 Privilege Log GRANTED as tothe | This document 1 1. all material in reflects how Quora 2 columns titled, pursued its internal “Recipients,” investigation of the 3 “Authors,” data breach at the “Document direction of counsel 4 Descriptions, and and contains non- 5 Privilege Claimed” public personal information of dozens 6 of individuals associated with the 7 investigation of the data breach. Guyon 8 Decl. 4 3. This non- 9 public information could be used by a 10 bad actor to harm Quora by revealing ll how it conducted its investigation. Id. a 12 Il, ORDER 5 For the reasons set forth herein, the Court GRANTS Defendant’s administrative motion to file under seal.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: November 13, 2020 19 kom Lh humans 20 BETH LABSON FREEMAN United States District Judge