Over-designation of Documents as Confidential Warrants Discovery Sanctions

The court granted in part plaintiff's motion to sanction defendants for abusing the parties' protective order by designation more than 90% of their production as "outside attorneys' eyes only." "Defendants have produced 226,834 documents totaling 862,280 pages. . . . About 90% of the production has been designated OAEO, and the rest is undesignated. As a result, nearly everything Defendants have produced in discovery is off-limits not only to Plaintiff and Plaintiff’s in-house counsel, but also to the specific corporate officers designated for access to Confidential documents. . . . 90% is an absurd number — made all the more absurd by Defendants’ failure to designate a single document as Confidential but not OAEO. The Court finds that Defendants acted in bad faith by indiscriminately designating nearly their entire production of documents as OAEO."

HealthTrio, LLC v. Aetna, Inc. et al, 1-12-cv-03229 (COD December 5, 2014, Order) (Watanabe, M.J.)