Unreported / Non-Citable
Background
Plaintiffs, including Mark Watkins, sued AvalonBay Communities, Inc. and others in the Southern District of California in a case involving a putative class. The excerpted order does not describe the claims, but the sealed materials concern Statements of Deposit Activity (SODAs) and prior resident ledgers, which relate to account balances at the end of a tenancy. AvalonBay moved for partial summary judgment and Plaintiffs filed their own cross-motion. This order decides neither motion.
Plaintiffs also applied ex parte to continue the scheduling-order deadlines until those motions are resolved. They argued that the parties hold two incompatible versions of the case and that the ruling will determine who is in the putative class, the amounts at issue, and what the experts must analyze. AvalonBay opposed, citing the resources it had already spent meeting expert deadlines and calling the proposed schedule excessive, though it agreed that the motions and a separate pending motion to dismiss could streamline the case. Two sealing motions and a joint motion to substitute Vivmark Residential Management LLC for AvalonBay were also pending.
The Court’s Holding
The court set the schedule for the cross-motions: exhibit compendiums by November 3, 2026, oppositions by November 17, replies by November 24, and a hearing on January 14, 2027, at 10:00 AM in Courtroom 4A. Exhibits cited by both sides go in a joint compendium, the remaining exhibits in separate party compendiums, and duplicates are to be avoided. The court granted the ex parte application in part. It denied Plaintiffs' proposed deadlines as excessive and unsupported, but vacated the existing scheduling-order deadlines, to be reset after the summary judgment ruling. It cautioned that this is not a back-door stay of discovery or of the case, and that the new schedule will be significantly abbreviated compared with Plaintiffs' proposal.
Applying the compelling-reasons standard, which starts from a strong presumption of access to judicial records and recognizes that sealing may be justified to prevent harm to a litigant's competitive standing, the court granted both sealing motions. It sealed AvalonBay's Exhibit 3, supplemental interrogatory answers describing how AvalonBay allocates security deposit functions between a shared services center and on-site and regional associates. It also sealed Plaintiffs' Exhibit 5 (excerpts of internal SODA policies), portions of Exhibit 1 (interrogatory answers with SODA financial data for one community), and the corresponding portions of Plaintiffs' cross-motion. Plaintiffs sought sealing to comply with the Stipulated Protective Order and AvalonBay's confidentiality designation; AvalonBay supplied the justification and Plaintiffs filed no reply. The court found each request narrowly tailored and the competitive-harm explanation sufficient, without finding that any trade secret was involved.
On the parties' representations of a transfer of interest, the court granted the joint motion, substituting Vivmark Residential Management LLC as defendant and dismissing AvalonBay Communities, Inc. with prejudice. The order makes no merits finding. The case continues against Vivmark, and both summary judgment motions and the pending motion to dismiss remain undecided.
Key Takeaways
- Vacating the scheduling-order deadlines is not a stay; the court warned that discovery and the case will move forward on a significantly abbreviated schedule once the cross-motions are decided.
- A request to reset a schedule around pending partial summary judgment motions can be granted in part, with the court rejecting the requesting party's proposed dates as excessive.
- Sealing was granted for internal security deposit and SODA processing materials because the court accepted a specific explanation of competitive harm and found the requests narrowly tailored to exhibits and matching brief passages.
- A party that files material only to comply with a protective order designation can rely on the designating party to supply the sealing justification.
- The substitution of Vivmark and the with-prejudice dismissal of AvalonBay rest on the parties' representations of a transfer of interest, not on any merits ruling.
Why It Matters
This is an unpublished district court case-management order, so it has no precedential weight. It is useful mainly as an example of how the court handles overlapping procedural motions when partial summary judgment rulings may change the scope of class issues, damages and expert work.
The sealing rulings show that routine, specific showings about nonpublic operating processes and financial data can satisfy the compelling-reasons standard when requests are confined to particular exhibits and related brief passages. Nothing in the order resolves liability, class issues or the pending motion to dismiss.