B&G Foods North America, Inc. v. Embry

8 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 9 FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 11 B&G Foods North America, Inc., No. 2:20-cv-00526-KJM-SCR 12 Plaintiff, ORDER 13 Vv.

Kim Embry and Environmental Health 15 Advocates, Inc., acting as enforcement representatives under California Proposition 65 16 on behalf of the State of California, 17 Defendants.

19 Defendants Kim Embry and Environmental Health Advocates, Inc. request the court seal a | document in support of their motion for summary judgment. See generally Seal Req. Notice, | ECF No. 194. Plaintiff has not opposed the request.

22 There is a strong presumption in favor of public access to court records. See Phillips v. | Gen. Motors Corp., 307 F.3d 1206, 1210 (9th Cir. 2002). However, “access to judicial records is | not absolute.” Kamakana v. City & Cnty. of Honolulu, 447 F.3d 1172, 1178 (9th Cir. 2006). For | documents filed with a dispositive motion, such as a motion for summary judgment, a request to | seal can be granted only if the moving party offers a “compelling reason” to keep the information | im question from the public. Ctr. for Auto Safety v. Chrysler Group, LLC, 809 F.3d 1092, 1096— | 97 (9th Cir. 2016) (quoting Kamakana, 447 F.3d at 1179); see also Xie v. De Young Properties 5418, LP, No. 16-01518, 2018 WL 3241068, at *2 (E.D. Cal. July 2, 2018). The party seeking to seal must “articulate compelling reasons supported by specific factual findings, that outweigh the general history of access and the public policies favoring disclosure, such as the public interest in understanding the judicial process.” Kamakana, 447 F.3d at 1178 (internal marks and citations omitted). The compelling-reasons standard applies even if a document was previously filed under seal or was covered by a generalized protective order, including a discovery phase protective order. Foltz v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 331 F.3d 1122, 1135 (9th Cir. 2003).

8 Here, defendants seek to seal, in its entirety, a document that contains excerpts of a deposition transcript. Defendants do not argue the deposition excerpts are confidential, but plaintiff does. Seal Req. Notice at 2. The court previously denied defendants’ request to seal without prejudice to a renewed request that specified why sealing was warranted. See Prior Order (July 29, 2024), ECF No. 193. Now, in this renewed request, defendants include a supporting declaration from plaintiff’s counsel. See David H. Kwasniewski Decl. (submitted for review in camera). According to plaintiff’s counsel, the compelling-reasons standard is met, and the entire document should be sealed, because the “testimony reveals commercially sensitive and trade secret information.” Id. ¶ 7 (on file with court). Specifically, plaintiff’s counsel states the deposition reveals information such as “the formulation or ingredients in B&G Foods’ products[.]” Id. ¶ 6.

19 While the status of information as trade secret is generally found to constitute a compelling reason to seal, see Kamakana, 447 F.3d at 1179 (citing Nixon v. Warner Commc’ns, Inc., 435 U.S. 589, 598 (1978)), here the court finds the request is overbroad. The request seeks to place a blanket seal on approximately fifty pages of deposition transcript, much of which does not appear to contain any “commercially sensitive and trade secret information.” Accordingly, the request to seal is denied without prejudice. See, e.g., Clay v. CytoSport, Inc., No. 15-00165, 2017 WL 10604136, at *2 (S.D. Cal. Mar. 8, 2017) (denying request to seal in part because “large portions do not include any potentially trade secret information”); Bunsow De Mory LLP v. N.

27 Forty Consulting LLC, No. 20-04997, 2020 WL 7872197, at *2 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 7, 2020) (finding similarly). Any renewed request to seal shall be filed within seven (7) days and specify which | pages and line numbers a party believes should be redacted and why. See Berlanga v. Polaris | Indus., Inc., No. 21-00949, 2023 WL 2752483, at *2 (E.D. Cal. Mar. 31, 2023) (“Tt is not the job | of this court to laboriously examine documents and connect the dots to provide specific reasons | supporting requests to seal.”).

5 This order resolves ECF No. 194.

6 IT IS SO ORDERED.

7 DATED: August 14, 2024. / / CHIEF ED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE