JAMES L. ROBART, District Judge.
Discovery in this action is likely to involve production of confidential, proprietary, or private information for which special protection, including clawback rights, 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 agreement is consistent with LCR 26(c). It does not confer blanket protection on all disclosures or responses to discovery, 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, and it does not presumptively entitle parties to file confidential information under seal.
"Confidential" material shall include the following documents and tangible things produced or otherwise exchanged:
The protections conferred by this agreement cover not only confidential material (as defined above), but also (1) any information copied, extracted or derived from confidential material; (2) all copies, excerpts, summaries, or compilations of confidential material; and (3) any testimony, conversations, or presentations by parties or their counsel that might reveal confidential material.
However, the protections conferred by this agreement do not cover information that is in the public domain or becomes part of the public domain through trial or otherwise.
4.1
4.2
(a) the receiving party's counsel of record in this action, as well as employees of 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, unless the designating party identifies that a particular document or material produced is for Attorney's Eyes Only and is so designated;
(c) experts and consultants to whom disclosure is reasonably necessary for this litigation and who have signed the "Acknowledgment and Agreement to Be Bound" (Exhibit A);
(d) the court, court personnel, and court reporters and their staff;
(e) copy or imaging services retained by counsel to assist in the duplication of confidential material, provided that counsel for the party retaining the copy or imaging service instructs the service not to disclose any confidential material to third parties, obtains a signed the "Acknowledgment and Agreement to Be Bound" (Exhibit A) and instructs the copy or imaging service to immediately return all originals and copies of any confidential material and to delete any digital copies that may have been made on the service's hardware or software incidental to the copying or imaging processes;;
(f) during their depositions, witnesses in the action to whom disclosure is reasonably necessary and who have signed the "Acknowledgment and Agreement to Be Bound" (Exhibit A), unless otherwise agreed by the designating party or ordered by the court pages of transcribed deposition testimony or exhibits to depositions that reveal confidential material must be separately bound by the court reporter and may not be disclosed to anyone except as permitted under this agreement;
(g) the author or recipient of a document containing the information or a custodian or other person who otherwise possessed or knew the information through means other than participating in this action.
(h) Others by Consent. Other persons only by written consent of the producing party or upon order of the Court and on such conditions in addition to signing the "Acknowledgment and Agreement to be Bound" (Exhibit A) as may be agreed or ordered.
4.3
5.1
Mass, indiscriminate, or routinized designations are prohibited. Designations that are shown to be clearly unjustified or that have been made for an improper purpose (e.g., to unnecessarily encumber or delay the case development process or to impose unnecessary expenses and burdens on other parties) expose the designating party to sanctions.
If it comes to a designating party's attention that information or items that it designated for protection do not qualify for protection, the designating party must promptly notify all other parties that it is withdrawing the inappropriate designation.
5.2
(a)
(b)
Depositions. Unless all parties agree on the record at the time the deposition testimony is taken, all deposition testimony taken in this case shall be treated as Confidential Information until the expiration of the following: No later than thirty (30) days after the transcript is delivered to any party or the witness, a party may serve a Notice of Designation to all parties of record as to specific portions of the testimony that are designated Confidential Information, and thereafter only those portions identified in the Notice of Designation shall be protected by the terms of this Order. The failure to serve a timely Notice of Designation shall waive any designation of testimony taken in that deposition as Confidential Information, unless otherwise agreed or ordered by the Court. If a party or non-party desires to protect confidential information at trial, the issue should be addressed during the pre-trial conference.
(c)
5.3
6.1
6.2
6.3
If a party is served with a subpoena or a court order issued in other litigation that compels disclosure of any information or items designated in this action as "CONFIDENTIAL," that party must:
(a) promptly notify the designating party in writing and include a copy of the subpoena or court order;
(b) promptly notify in writing the party who caused the subpoena or order to issue in the other litigation that some or all of the material covered by the subpoena or order is subject to this agreement. Such notification shall include a copy of this agreement; and
(c) cooperate with respect to all reasonable procedures sought to be pursued by the designating party whose confidential material may be affected.
If a receiving party learns that, by inadvertence or otherwise, it has disclosed confidential material to any person or in any circumstance not authorized under this agreement, the receiving party must immediately (a) notify in writing the designating party of the unauthorized disclosures, (b) use its best efforts to retrieve all unauthorized copies of the protected material, (c) inform the person or persons to whom unauthorized disclosures were made of all the terms of this agreement, and (d) request that such person or persons execute the "Acknowledgment and Agreement to Be Bound" that is attached hereto as Exhibit A.
When a producing party gives notice to receiving parties that certain inadvertently produced material is subject to a claim of privilege or other protection, the obligations of the receiving parties are those set forth in Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b)(5)(B). This provision is not intended to modify whatever procedure may be established in an e-discovery order or agreement that provides for production without prior privilege review. The parties agree to the entry of a non-waiver order under Fed. R. Evid. 502(d) as set forth herein.
Within 60 days after the termination of this action, including all appeals, each receiving party must return or destroy all confidential material to the producing party, including all copies, extracts and summaries thereof. Notwithstanding this provision, counsel are entitled to retain one archival copy of all documents filed with the court, trial, deposition, and hearing transcripts, correspondence, deposition and trial exhibits, expert reports, attorney work product, and consultant and expert work product, even if such materials contain confidential material.
The confidentiality obligations imposed by this agreement shall remain in effect until a designating party agrees otherwise in writing or a court orders otherwise.
To the maximum extent permitted by law, the undersigned agree, and the Court orders, that the production of documents by parties and non-parties that produce documents in these actions (each, a "Producing Party") shall be governed by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b)(5)(B) and Federal Rule of Evidence 502 regarding the inadvertent production of material protected by the attorney-client privilege, the work product doctrine, or any other privilege or protection from disclosure recognized under potentially applicable international, federal or state law or regulation, including without limitation, trade secrets and personally identifiable information ("Privileged Material").
The procedure set forth below is intended to provide the Producing Party or any other party purporting to hold a privilege or right of confidentiality with an efficient method for retrieving or "clawing back" inadvertently produced Privileged Material, subject to any resolution of any dispute over the privileged or protected status of the Privileged Material, and for foreclosing any arguments of waiver, subject to the procedures outlined below for bringing disputed claims to the Court for resolution.
If a Producing Party, or any other party purporting to hold a privilege or right of confidentiality, has a good faith belief that Privileged Material has been inadvertently produced, it shall promptly after discovering such inadvertent production notify the receiving parties of its claim of privilege or protection.
Upon receipt of any notice claiming that a document is or includes Privileged Material, all other parties (regardless of whether they agree with the claim of privilege or confidentiality) shall, within 21 days:
(a) use reasonable efforts to destroy or sequester all copies of the inadvertently produced documents or material in their possession, custody, or control, and notify the Producing Party, or any other party purporting to hold a privilege, that they have done so;
(b) notify the Producing Party that they have taken reasonable steps to retrieve and destroy or sequester the inadvertently produced documents or material from other persons, if any, to whom such documents or material have been provided, consistent with Rule 26(b)(5)(B).
Within 30 days after receiving the notification required by Paragraph 26(b) above, the Producing Party shall produce a privilege log with respect to the inadvertently produced documents.
Pursuant to Federal Rule of Evidence 502(d) as modified and extended by this Order, the inadvertent production of Privileged Material in this Action shall not constitute a waiver of any applicable privilege, protection or prohibition from disclosure of that Privileged Material in any other federal or state proceeding.
IT IS SO STIPULATED, THROUGH COUNSEL OF RECORD.
PURSUANT TO STIPULATION, IT IS SO ORDERED.
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that pursuant to Fed. R. Evid. 502(d), the production of any documents in this proceeding shall not, for the purposes of this proceeding or any other proceeding in any other court, constitute a waiver by the producing party of any privilege applicable to those documents, including the attorney-client privilege, attorney work-product protection, or any other privilege or protection recognized by law.
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 Western District of Washington on [date] in the case of ____________________
I further agree to submit to the jurisdiction of the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington for the purpose of enforcing the terms of this Stipulated Protective Order, even if such enforcement proceedings occur after termination of this action.