Gordoa v. Apple, Inc.

Summary

The United States District Court for the Northern District of California resolves the parties’ administrative motions to seal materials related to Apple’s motion for summary judgment and motion to exclude a plaintiff’s expert. The court grants Apple’s narrowly tailored sealing requests, denies Plaintiffs’ request to seal all exhibits based only on a protective order, and disposes of Docket Nos. 198, 208, and 213.

Holdings

1. Apple met its burden to show that sealing limited portions of Exhibits A and C and all of Exhibit B was appropriate because the materials contained sensitive business information concerning Apple's safety-testing protocols and product testing.
2. Plaintiffs failed to establish grounds for sealing all 22 exhibits because reliance on the parties' protective order and a general assertion of confidentiality did not satisfy the requirements for sealing, and the request was not narrowly tailored.
3. Apple met its burden to seal limited portions of Exhibits 12, 13, 14, and 15 because those portions contained sensitive business information, including proprietary and confidential source code.

Questions Presented

1. Whether Apple demonstrated compelling reasons to seal limited portions of materials submitted with its summary-judgment and expert-exclusion motions.
2. Whether plaintiffs demonstrated sufficient grounds to seal all 22 exhibits to their opposition based on a general assertion of confidentiality and the parties' protective order.
3. Whether Apple demonstrated sufficient grounds to seal limited portions of four exhibits to plaintiffs' opposition based on proprietary and confidential source-code information.

Disposition

other