Opinion
No. CV-05-3643-PCT-PGR.
May 16, 2006
ORDER
Pending before the Court is the parties' Stipulation to Enter into Protective Order for Disclosure of Confidential Material (doc. #33), filed April 28, 2006. Although the Court has no objection to entering into a protective order in this action, the Court will require the parties to submit an amended form of protective order that revises paragraph 5 on page four of their proposed Protective Order for Disclosure of Confidential Material so that it contains the language that the Court requires relating to the filing of confidential or privileged information with the Court. The Court requires this language in light of its policy, adopted due to the strong presumption in favor of public access to court records, not to allow parties to file entire documents under seal simply because some portion of the document may contain confidential or privileged information.
Since the parties may not electronically file sealed documents with the Court, the parties shall utilize the following procedure for filing documents that contain Confidential Information:
(a) The original of any document to be filed with the Court, including memoranda of points and authorities, deposition transcripts and exhibits, that references Confidential Information shall be electronically filed only in a redacted format. Any such document shall have redacted, from the original filed document only, just those specific references, sentences, or paragraphs containing the Confidential Information, and a blank space shall be inserted at the site of each redaction in the original document which shall contain the notation that Confidential Information has been redacted and filed separately under seal.
(b) The redacted references, sentences, or paragraphs containing the Confidential Information shall be filed separately filed, non-electronically, in a sealed envelope that is endorsed with the caption of the case, the caption of the document, and an appropriate designation stating that it contains confidential contents filed under seal pursuant to a protective order. The designation shall state the date the protective order permitting the filing under seal was entered and the docket number of that order.
(c) The Judge's copy of the original filed document, whether an e-mailed copy or a delivered courtesy copy, or both, shall not contain any redactions, but the references, sentences, or paragraphs containing the Confidential information redacted from the original filed document shall be double underlined on the Judge's copy and a notation shall be placed on those pages stating that Confidential Information is contained therein.
Therefore,
IT IS ORDERED that the parties' Stipulation to Enter into Protective Order for Disclosure of Confidential Information (doc. #33) is accepted to the extent that the parties shall e-mailed to Chambers no later than May 26, 2006 a revised form of protective order in conformance with the modifications required by this Order.