United States District Court, C.D. California
JEFF BUSH, on behalf of himself and all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs,
v.
CALIFORNIA PHYSICIANS' SERVICE, dba BLUE SHIELD OF CALIFORNIA, Defendant.
[PROPOSED] STIPULATED PROTECTIVE ORDER
PATRICK J. WALSH, Magistrate Judge.
Subject
to the approval of this Court, Plaintiff Jeff Bush and
Defendant California Physicians' Service dba Blue Shield
of California stipulate as follows:
1.
Purposes and Limitations
Discovery
in this action is likely to involve production of
confidential, proprietary, or private information for which
special protection from public disclosure and from use for
any purpose other than prosecuting this litigation may be
warranted. Accordingly, the parties hereby stipulate to and
petition the Court to enter the following Stipulated
Protective Order. The parties acknowledge that this Order
does not confer blanket protections on all disclosures or
responses to discovery and that the protection it affords
from public disclosure and use extends only to the limited
information or items that are entitled to confidential
treatment under the applicable legal principles. The parties
further acknowledge, as set forth in Section 9, below, that
this Stipulated Protective Order does not entitle them to
file confidential information under seal; Civil Local Rules
79-5, 79-6, and 79-7 set forth the procedures that must be
followed and the standards that will be applied when a party
seeks permission from the court to file material under seal.
2. Good
Cause Statement
This
action is likely to involve valuable research, development,
commercial, financial, technical and/or proprietary
information for which special protection from public
disclosure and from use for any purpose other than
prosecution of this action is warranted. Such confidential
and proprietary materials and information consist of, among
other things, confidential business or financial information;
information regarding confidential business practices or
other confidential research, development, or commercial
information (including information implicating privacy rights
of third parties); or information otherwise generally
unavailable to the public or which may be privileged or
otherwise protected from disclosure under state or federal
statutes, court rules, case decisions, or common law.
Accordingly, to expedite the flow of information, to
facilitate the prompt resolution of disputes over
confidentiality of discovery materials, to adequately protect
information the parties are entitled to keep confidential, to
ensure that the parties are permitted reasonable necessary
uses of such material in preparation for and in the conduct
of trial, to address their handling at the end of the
litigation, and serve the ends of justice, a protective order
for such information is justified in this matter. It is the
intent of the parties that information will not be designated
as confidential for tactical reasons and that nothing be so
designated without a good faith belief that it has been
maintained in a confidential, non-public manner, and there is
good cause why it should not be part of the public record of
this case.
3. A
document constitutes or contains "Confidential
Material" when it has been given that designation by the
party producing it or by the party to whom the information
relates ("the Designating Party"). A party or
nonparty may designate documents or information as
"Confidential Material" as follows:
a. In
the case of documents and information contained in documents,
designation must be made by placing the following legend on
each page of the document before production: "CONTAINS
CONFIDENTIAL MATERIAL, SUBJECT TO PROTECTIVE ORDER."
b. In
the case of discovery responses and information contained in
discovery responses, designation must be made by (i) placing
a statement at the start or end of the responses specifying
that the responses, or part of the responses, are designated
Confidential Material, and (ii) placing the following legend
on each page (including the caption page) of any discovery
response containing designated Confidential Material:
"CONTAINS CONFIDENTIAL MATERIAL, SUBJECT TO PROTECTIVE
ORDER."
c. In
the case of depositions and hearings, designation of the
portions of the transcript (including exhibits) that contain
Confidential Material must be made by the Designating Party
by: (i) making a statement to that effect on the record in
the course of the deposition or hearing; or (ii) sending a
letter to all counsel within the time permitted for the
review and signing of the deposition by the witness (in the
event of a deposition) or within 45 days of receipt of the
transcript of the hearing (in the event of a hearing). Once
designated, the original and each copy of the transcript that
contains Confidential Material must bear (or must be modified
by counsel to bear) the following legend on its cover:
"CONTAINS CONFIDENTIAL MATERIAL, SUBJECT TO PROTECTIVE
ORDER."
4. For
purposes of this Order, "Confidential Material"
includes the following types of documents and information:
a.
information that is proprietary or constitutes a trade
secret, including, without limitation, information,
materials, and other documents reflecting non-public business
or financial strategies and confidential competitive
information that, if disclosed, could result in prejudice or
harm to the disclosing party;
b.
non-public financial projections, analyses, or studies;
c.
non-public communications with regulators, Departments of
Insurance, or other governmental bodies that are intended to
be kept confidential or are ...