Unreported / Non-Citable
Background
Rocket Resume, Inc. sued BOLD Limited and other defendants alleging antitrust violations. BOLD moved to dismiss the complaint, and then filed a separate motion directed to Rocket Resume's purported confidential information contained in BOLD's motion to dismiss and the corresponding exhibits. Specifically, BOLD asked the court to seal portions of its motion to dismiss, Exhibit A in its entirety, and portions of Exhibit B, a cease-and-desist letter BOLD sent to Rocket Resume. The court noted that all three requests stemmed from Exhibit A, which the opinion describes as a settlement agreement between the parties from a prior dispute and which the operative sealing table identifies as a Settlement Term Sheet.
The motion was governed by the Ninth Circuit framework for public access to judicial records. Documents more than tangentially related to the merits may be sealed only on a showing of compelling reasons; other documents require only good cause. Because motions to dismiss and their corresponding exhibits are more than tangentially related to the merits, the compelling-reasons standard applied, and BOLD bore the burden of overcoming the presumption of access with reasons that outweighed the history of access and the public policies favoring disclosure.
The Court’s Holding
Judge Beth Labson Freeman granted BOLD's motion to seal in full. As to Exhibit A, the court found that it was a confidential settlement agreement between the parties from a prior dispute. Citing authority recognizing that parties have a legitimate interest in keeping the terms of their individual settlements private, the court also relied on the agreement's confidentiality provision as evidence that the parties intended to keep the settlement out of the public record. After reviewing Exhibit A, the court concluded that more surgical redactions would not be reasonable, so the entire document was sealed.
The court next granted sealing of four excerpts from the motion to dismiss. Those redactions were narrowly tailored because each excerpt referenced and discussed provisions of the confidential settlement agreement, which supplied compelling reasons for sealing. Finally, the court granted sealing of one paragraph of the cease-and-desist letter in Exhibit B because that paragraph likewise referenced and discussed a provision of the confidential settlement agreement. The operative order directed that the yellow-highlighted portions of the motion to dismiss at the specified page and line numbers, Exhibit A in its entirety, and the yellow-highlighted portion of Exhibit B at page 3 be sealed.
Key Takeaways
- Motions to dismiss and their exhibits are more than tangentially related to the merits, so sealing them requires compelling reasons rather than mere good cause.
- A confidential settlement agreement may be sealed in its entirety when the parties have a legitimate interest in settlement privacy, the agreement contains a confidentiality provision, and narrower redactions would not be reasonable.
- Redactions to a motion to dismiss are narrowly tailored when the sealed excerpts reference and discuss only provisions of the same confidential settlement agreement.
- A related cease-and-desist letter may receive a targeted redaction when the sealed paragraph discusses a provision of that confidential agreement.
- The court granted all three requests because each stemmed from the same underlying confidential settlement material, and it ordered the specific ECF No. 37 materials and portions listed in the sealing table to be sealed.
Why It Matters
The order applies the demanding compelling-reasons standard to materials filed with a dispositive motion and shows that settlement confidentiality can satisfy that standard when the agreement itself demonstrates the parties' intent to keep its terms private. It also illustrates that courts will seal an entire settlement document only after finding that more surgical redactions would not be reasonable.
Practically, the ruling confirms that related filings referencing the same confidential settlement may receive coordinated, narrowly tailored redactions. Litigants seeking to seal materials in connection with a motion to dismiss should tie each requested redaction to specific confidential provisions and explain why broader disclosure would undermine a recognized interest such as settlement confidentiality.