SUZANNE H. SEGAL, Magistrate Judge.
Disclosure and discovery activity in this action are 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 would be warranted.
Accordingly, Defendants Los Alamitos RHF Housing, Inc., Foundation Property Management, Inc., and Retirement Housing Foundation (collectively, Defendants), as well as Plaintiff Denise Royal (collectively, 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 extends only to the limited information or items that are entitled under the applicable legal principles to treatment as confidential.
The parties further acknowledge, as set forth infra, that this Order creates no entitlement to file confidential information under seal. Civil Local Rule 79-5 sets forth the procedures that must be followed and reflects the standards that will be applied when a party seeks permission from the Court to file material under seal.
This housing discrimination action may include confidential, privileged, proprietary, or private information including but not limited to Defendants' and/or Plaintiff's financial information, employee personnel files, medical history and information, and third party personal and financial information, for which special protection from public disclosure and from use for any purpose other than prosecution of this action is warranted.
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.
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The protections conferred by this Stipulation and Order cover not only Protected Material (as defined above), but also any information copied or extracted therefrom, as well as all copies, excerpts, summaries, or compilations thereof, plus testimony, conversations, or presentations by Parties or Counsel to or in court or in other settings that might reveal Protected Material.
Even after the termination of this litigation, the confidentiality obligations imposed by this Order shall remain in effect until a Designating Party agrees otherwise in writing or a court order otherwise directs, Subject to L.R. 79-7.SHS.
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Designation in conformity with this Order requires:
(a)
A Party or non-party that makes original documents or materials available for inspection need not designate them for protection until after the inspecting Party has indicated which material it would like copied and produced. During the inspection and before the designation, all of the material made available for inspection shall be deemed "HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL-ATTORNEYS' EYES ONLY." After the inspecting Party has identified the documents it wants copied and produced, the Producing Party must determine which documents, or portions thereof, qualify for protection under this Order, then, before producing the specified documents, the Producing Party must affix the appropriate legend ("CONFIDENTIAL" or "HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL-ATTORNEYS' EYES ONLY") at the top of each page that contains Protected Material. If only a portion or portions of the material on a page qualifies for protection, the Producing Party also must clearly identify the protected portion(s) (e.g., by making appropriate marking in the margins) and must specify, for each portion, the level of protection being asserted (either "CONFIDENTIAL," or "HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL-ATTORNEYS' EYES ONLY").
(b)
Transcript pages containing Protected Material must be separately bound by the court reporter, who must affix to the top of each such page the legend "CONFIDENTIAL" or "HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL-ATTORNEYS' EYES ONLY"S ONLY," as instructed by the Party or nonparty offering or sponsoring the witness or presenting the testimony.
(c)
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The burden of persuasion in any such challenge proceeding shall be on the Designating Party. Until the court rules on the challenge, all parties shall continue to afford the material in question the level of protection to which it is entitled under the Producing Party's designation.
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(a) the Receiving Party's Counsel of record in this litigation, as well as employees of said Counsel to whom it is reasonably necessary to disclose the information for this litigation;
(b) the officers, directors, and employees (including in-house Counsel) of the Receiving Party to whom disclosure is reasonably necessary for this litigation);
(c) experts (as defined in this Order) of the Receiving Party to whom disclosure is reasonably necessary for this litigation and who have signed the "Agreement to Be Bound by Protective Order" (Exhibit A);
(d) the Court and its personnel, court reporters and their staffs;
(e) professional vendors to whom disclosure is reasonably necessary for this litigation;
(f) during their depositions, witnesses in the litigation to whom disclosure is reasonably necessary and who have signed the "Agreement to Be Bound by Protective Order" (Exhibit A). Pages of transcribed deposition testimony or exhibits to depositions that reveal Protected Material must be separately bound by the court reporter and may not be disclosed to anyone except as permitted under this Stipulated Protective Order; and
(g) the author or original recipients of the document, or the original source of the information.
(h) the Receiving Party's carrier representatives to whom it is reasonably necessary to disclose the information for this litigation and who have signed the "Agreement to Be Bound by Protective Order" (Exhibit A).
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(a) the Receiving Party's Counsel of record in this litigation, as well as employees of said Counsel to whom it is reasonably necessary to disclose the information for this litigation, including Defendants' in-house counsel.
(b) Experts (as defined in this Order) (1) to whom disclosure is reasonably necessary for this litigation, and (2) who have signed the "Agreement to Be Bound by Protective Order" (Exhibit A);
(c) the Court and its personnel, court reporters and their staffs;
(d) professional vendors to whom disclosure is reasonably necessary for this litigation;
(e) during their depositions, witnesses in the litigation employed by or designated as a party witness by the Designating Party to whom disclosure is reasonably necessary and who have signed the "Agreement to Be Bound by Protective Order" (Exhibit A). Pages of transcribed deposition testimony or exhibits to depositions that reveal Protected Material must be separately bound by the court reporter and may not be disclosed to anyone except as permitted under this Stipulated Protective Order;
(f) the author or original recipients of the document, or the original source of the information; and
(g) the Receiving Party's carrier representatives to whom it is reasonably necessary to disclose the information for this litigation and who have signed the "Agreement to Be Bound by Protective Order" (Exhibit A).
If a Receiving Party is served with a subpoena or an order issued in other litigation that would compel disclosure of any information or items designated in this litigation as "CONFIDENTIAL" or "HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL-ATTORNEYS' EYES ONLY," the Receiving Party must so notify the Designating Party, in writing (by email, if possible) immediately and in no event more than three court days after receiving the subpoena or order. Such notification must include a copy of the subpoena or court order.
The Receiving Party also must immediately inform in writing the Party who caused the subpoena or order to issue in the other litigation that some or all the material covered by the subpoena or order is the subject of this Protective Order. In addition, the Receiving Party must deliver a copy of this Stipulated Protective Order promptly to the Party in the other litigation that caused the subpoena or order to issue. The purpose of imposing these duties is to alert the interested parties to the existence of this Protective Order and to afford the Designating Party in this case an opportunity to try to protect its confidentiality interests in the court from which the subpoena or order issued. The Designating Party shall bear the burdens and the expenses of seeking protection in that court of its confidential material, and nothing in these provisions should be construed as authorizing or encouraging a Receiving Party in this action to disobey a lawful directive from another court.
If a Receiving Party learns that, by inadvertence or otherwise, it has disclosed Protected Material to any person or in any circumstance not authorized under this Stipulated Protective Order, the Receiving Party must immediately (a) notify in writing the Designating Party of the unauthorized disclosures, (b) use its best efforts to retrieve all copies of the Protected Material, (c) inform the person or persons to whom unauthorized disclosures were made of all the terms of this Order, and (d) request such person or persons to execute the "Acknowledgment and Agreement to Be Bound" that is attached hereto as Exhibit A.
Without written permission from the Designating Party or a court order secured after appropriate notice to all interested persons, a Party may not file in the public record in this litigation any Protected Material. A Party that seeks to file under seal any Protected Material must comply with Civil Local Rule 79-5.
Unless otherwise ordered or agreed in writing by the Producing Party, within sixty days after the final termination of this action, each Receiving Party must return all Protected Material to the Producing Party. As used in this subdivision, "All Protected Material" includes all copies, abstracts, compilations, summaries or any other form of reproducing or capturing any of the Protected Material. With permission in writing from the Designating Party, the Receiving Party may destroy some or all of the Protected Material instead of returning it. Whether the Protected Material is returned or destroyed, the Receiving Party must submit a written certification to the Producing Party (and, if not the same person or entity, to the Designating Party) by the sixty day deadline that identifies (by category, where appropriate) all the Protected Material that was returned or destroyed and that affirms that the Receiving Party has not retained any copies, abstracts, compilations, summaries or other forms of reproducing or capturing any of the Protected Material. Notwithstanding this provision, Counsel are entitled to retain an archival copy of all pleadings, motion papers, transcripts, legal memoranda, correspondence or attorney work product, even if such materials contain Protected Material. Any such archival copies that contain or constitute Protected Material remain subject to this Protective Order as set forth in Section 5, supra.
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FOR GOOD CAUSE SHOWN, IT IS SO ORDERED.
I, _____________________ [print or type full name], of ___________________________ [print or type full address], declare under penalty of perjury that I have read in its entirety and understand the Stipulated Protective Order that was issued by the United States District Court for the Central District of California on ______________ [date] in the case of
I further agree to submit to the jurisdiction of the United States District Court for the Central District of California for the purpose of enforcing the terms of this Stipulated Protective Order, even if such enforcement proceedings, occur after termination of this litigation.
I hereby appoint ______________ [print or type full name] of ___________________________ [print or type full address and telephone number] as my California agent for service in connection with this litigation or any proceedings related to enforcement of this Stipulated Protective Order.