United States District Court, D. Arizona
ORDER
DOMINIC W. LANZA, UNITED SLATES DISTRICT JUDGE
Pending
before the Court are the Parties' Joint Motion to Seal
Exhibit 68 to Defendants' Refiled Motion for Partial
Summary Judgment (Doc. 144), Defendants' unopposed Motion
to Seal Exhibits 6A and 7A to Defendants' Refiled Motion
for Partial Summary Judgment (Doc. 145), and
Plaintiff/Counter-Defendants' Motion to Seal or Strike
Page 70 of Docket #128-1 and Page 47 of Docket #128-2 (Doc.
148). For the following reasons, the Court will grant all
three motions.
The
public has a general right to inspect judicial records and
documents, such that a party seeking to seal a judicial
record must overcome “a strong presumption in favor of
access.” Kamakana v. City & Cty. of
Honolulu, 447 F.3d 1172, 1178 (9th Cir. 2006). To do so,
the party must “articulate compelling reasons supported
by specific factual findings that outweigh the general
history of access and the public policies favoring disclosure
. . . .” Id. at 1178-79 (internal quotation
marks and citations omitted). The Court must then
“conscientiously balance the competing interests of the
public and the party who seeks to keep certain judicial
records secret.” Id. at 1179 (internal
quotation marks omitted). “After considering these
interests, if the court decides to seal certain judicial
records, it must base its decision on a compelling reason and
articulate the factual basis for its ruling, without relying
on hypothesis or conjecture.” Id. (internal
quotation marks omitted).
The
“stringent” compelling reasons standard applies
to all filed motions and their attachments where the motion
is “more than tangentially related to the merits of a
case.” Ctr. for Auto Safety v. Chrysler Grp.,
LLC, 809 F.3d 1092, 1096, 1101 (9th Cir. 2016). A motion
for full or partial summary judgment is clearly such a
motion.
Exhibit
68 to Defendants' refiled motion for partial summary
judgment contains 53 pages of Kim Cramton's medical
records, providing many details of her medical history that
exceed the scope of this case. (Doc. 144 at 3.) The Court has
balanced the public's interest in accessing judicial
documents against Cramton's interest in privacy and
hereby determines that compelling reasons exist for sealing
this exhibit. The medical records contain a great deal of
sensitive and private information about her health, beyond
just the information relevant to the case. The public's
interest in knowing intimate details of Cramton's health
beyond the scope of this case is minimal, and Cramton's
interest in keeping them private is significant. Cf.
Aguilar v. Koehn, 2018 WL 4839021, *2 (D. Nev. 2018)
(“While a plaintiff puts certain aspects of his medical
condition at issue when he files an action alleging
deliberate indifference to a serious medical need under the
Eighth Amendment, that does not mean that the entirety of his
medical records filed in connection with a motion (which
frequently contain records that pertain to unrelated medical
information) need be unnecessarily broadcast to the public.
In other words, the plaintiff's interest in keeping his
sensitive health information confidential outweighs the
public's need for direct access to the medical
records.”). The Court therefore finds it appropriate to
seal Exhibit 68.
Defendants
request leave to file Exhibits 6A and 7A to their Refiled
Motion for Partial Summary Judgment under seal, averring that
“the information contained in these exhibits is
extremely personal and private, ” noting in a footnote
that “Defendants cannot specifically state what the
personal and private information is because to do so would
obviate the purpose of this Motion.” (Doc. 145 at 2, 2
n.1.) The Court has reviewed Exhibits 6A and 7A, which
address the sensitive medical condition of one of the
parties, and concludes, for the same reasons as noted above
with respect to Exhibit 68, that they may be filed under
seal.
Finally,
Plaintiff/Counter-Defendants filed a Motion to Seal or Strike
Page 70 of Docket #128-1 and Page 47 of Docket #128-2, in
which they state that they “inadvertently attached two
pages of . . . testimony designated ‘CONFIDENTIAL'
by Defendants as exhibits to their previously filed Motion
for Summary Judgment (Doc. 128).” (Doc. 148 at 2.) As
noted by Plaintiff/Counter-Defendants, pursuant to the
Court's Protective Order, materials designated
“CONFIDENTIAL” by the parties may be filed with
the Court only under seal. (Doc. 57 at ¶ 8.)
Plaintiff/Counter-Defendants aver that the “disclosure
was erroneous and the confidential content of that deposition
testimony was not discussed in Plaintiff's Motion,
” and moreover, “[t]he confidential information
has been omitted from Plaintiff's recently re-filed
Motion for Summary Judgment.” (Doc. 148 at 2.) Because
the filing was prohibited by this Court's Protective
Order, a motion to strike is appropriate. LRCiv 7.2(m)(1).
The Court therefore orders that Docs. 128-1 and 128-2 shall
be stricken from the record.
Accordingly,
IT IS ORDERED that the Parties' Joint
Motion to Seal Exhibit 68 to Defendant's Refiled Motion
for Partial Summary Judgment (Doc. 144) is
GRANTED. The Clerk of Court shall seal
Exhibit 68.
IT
IS FURTHER ORDERED that Defendants' unopposed
Motion to Seal Exhibits 6A and 7A to Defendants' Refiled
Motion for Partial Summary Judgment (Doc. 145) is
GRANTED. The Clerk of Court shall seal
Exhibits 6A and 7A.
IT
IS FURTHER ORDERED that
Plaintiff/Counter-Defendants' Motion to Seal or Strike
Page 70 of Docket #128-1 and Page 47 of Docket #128-2 (Doc.
148) is GRANTED. The Clerk of ...