Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-4_18-cv-03358/USCOURTS-cand-4_18-cv-03358-9/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 820
Nature of Suit: Copyright
Cause of Action: 17:101 Copyright Infringement

---

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

United States District Court

Northern District of California

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

KEVIN BARRY FINE ART 

ASSOCIATES,

Plaintiff,

v.

KEN GANGBAR STUDIO, INC.,

Defendant.

Case No. 18-cv-03358-HSG (TSH)

DISCOVERY ORDER

Re: Dkt. No. 100

Defendant and counterclaimant Ken Gangbar Studio, Inc., has challenged the 

confidentiality designations of 974 documents produced in this action – 972 by third-party 

Defendant John Johnson and two by non-party Monarch Art & Frame, Inc. The parties were 

unable to resolve the challenge without court intervention, so Plaintiff and counter-defendant 

Kevin Barry Fine Art Associates (“KBFAA”) and Johnson moved under paragraph 6.3 of the 

stipulated protective order to retain the confidentiality designations of all 974 documents. The 

moving parties argued that the documents fell into two broad categories: first, documents that 

show commercial information concerning their sales, costs, revenues and business methods, which 

they say contain the moving parties’ confidential information; and second, documents related to 

their projects for designers and end users who conduct business with them with an expectation of 

confidentiality, which they say contain their clients’ confidential information. Rather than putting 

all 974 documents before the Court, which the Court agrees is infeasible, the moving parties 

proceeded by way of examples. They initially filed 10 examples of each of the two categories of 

documents as exhibits I and J to the Bolling Declaration, ECF No. 100-3, but since the filing was 

in the public record, it waived whatever confidential status the documents previously may have 

had. The Court explained in its December 13, 2019 Order that it was unwilling to make 

Case 4:18-cv-03358-HSG Document 113 Filed 01/09/20 Page 1 of 9
2

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

United States District Court

Northern District of California

confidentiality determinations using as examples documents for which the moving parties had 

voluntarily waived confidentiality. ECF No. 105. 

The Court is here now on the moving parties’ second attempt. With the 20 documents 

whose confidentiality has been waived out of the way, there are now 954 documents at issue, 953 

produced by Johnson and one by Monarch Art & Frame. The moving parties have submitted 16 

documents for in camera review, 10 of which are in the second category and 6 of which are in the 

first.

Let’s start with the second category. The moving parties say these documents should be 

treated as confidential because they contain client information, which KBFAA tells clients it will 

keep confidential and which some of its written contracts require to be kept confidential. KBFAA 

says that Johnson and Monarch are independent contractors that KBFAA hires for client projects, 

so KBFAA’s confidentiality obligations toward its clients also apply to Johnson and Monarch. As 

an initial matter, Ken Gangbar asserts that it is inconsistent with paragraph 9 of the protective 

order for parties to the litigation to designate documents as confidential on the ground that they 

contain a non-party’s confidential information. The Court disagrees.

Paragraph 9 of the protective order says:

(a) The terms of this Order are applicable to information produced by 

a Non-Party in this action and designated as “CONFIDENTIAL.” 

Such information produced by Non-Parties in connection with this 

litigation is protected by the remedies and relief provided by this 

Order. Nothing in these provisions should be construed as prohibiting 

a Non-Party from seeking additional protections. 

(b) In the event that a Party (the “Responding Party”) is required, by 

a valid discovery request, to produce a Non-Party’s confidential 

information in its possession, and the Responding Party is subject to 

an agreement with the Non-Party not to produce the Non-Party’s 

confidential information, then the Responding Party shall: 

(1) promptly notify in writing the Requesting Party and the 

Non-Party that some or all of the information requested is 

subject to a confidentiality agreement with a Non-Party; 

(2) promptly provide the Non-Party with a copy of the 

Stipulated Protective Order in this litigation, the relevant 

discovery request(s) (with any materials designated as 

Confidential by a separate Designating Party redacted), and a 

reasonably specific description of the information requested; 

and 

Case 4:18-cv-03358-HSG Document 113 Filed 01/09/20 Page 2 of 9
3

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

United States District Court

Northern District of California

(3) make the information requested available for inspection by 

the Non-Party, making any necessary arrangements for the 

redaction of materials designated Confidential by a party other 

than the Non-Party. 

(c) If the Non-Party fails to object or seek a protective order from this 

court within 14 days of receiving the notice and accompanying 

information, the Responding Party may produce the Non-Party’s 

confidential information responsive to the discovery request. If the

Non-Party timely seeks a protective order, the Responding Party shall 

not produce any information in its possession or control that is subject 

to the confidentiality agreement with the Non-Party before a 

determination by the court. Absent a court order to the contrary, the 

Non-Party shall bear the burden and expense of seeking protection in 

this court of its Protected Material.

Subsection (a) states that the protections of the protective order are applicable to 

documents produced and designated as “confidential” by a non-party. However, virtually all of 

the documents at issue here were produced by Johnson, a party. It is common for a litigant to 

possess documents that have somebody else’s confidential information in them – that happens a 

lot when a litigant has customers. Paragraph 9(a) does not bar a litigant from designating its own 

produced documents as confidential on the ground that they contain third-party confidential 

information.

A literalist might have a problem with KBFAA designating as confidential a document 

produced by Monarch. It seems like the proper procedure under paragraph 9(a) is for the nonparty to designate its documents as confidential if it believes they are, so you could draw a 

negative inference that if the non-party fails to do so, nobody else can. This negative inference is 

bolstered by paragraph 5.2 of the protective order, which suggests that confidentiality designations 

are made by the producing party. However, in this case we are dealing with the situation where 

the producing party (Monarch) has a document that supposedly contains somebody else’s 

confidential information (the client’s), and Monarch’s obligation to keep it confidential is 

derivative of KBFAA’s commitment to do so. On these facts, there is nothing procedurally 

improper about KBFAA’s designating a document produced by Monarch as confidential. Stated 

another way, Monarch’s failure to comply with the confidentiality obligations it assumed by 

working for KBFAA (if it had any) should not bar KBFAA from enforcing those obligations.

Subsections (b) and (c) of paragraph 9 address a different situation. This is the situation 

Case 4:18-cv-03358-HSG Document 113 Filed 01/09/20 Page 3 of 9
4

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

United States District Court

Northern District of California

where the producing party has promised not to produce a non-party’s confidential information. 

These subsections create a mechanism by which the non-party receives notice of the discovery 

request and then can move for a protective order to try to stop the document production. Here, 

Johnson and Monarch simply produced the documents in question and did not claim a contract 

barred them from doing so.

So, with paragraph 9 of the protective order out of the way, and still focusing on the 

category of documents that contain allegedly client-confidential information, the moving parties 

were free to designate these documents confidential if they do in fact contain client-confidential 

information. But do they? That is the key question. Paragraph 2.2 of the protective order defines 

confidential information to mean information or tangible things “that qualify for protection under 

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(c).” Both sides agree, and they are correct, that protection 

under Rule 26(c) requires a showing of good cause. Fed. R. Civ. Proc. 26(c)(1) (“The Court may, 

for good cause, issue an order to protect a party or person from annoyance, embarrassment, 

oppression, undue burden or expense . . .”).

With respect to client information, the moving parties say there is good cause because 

KBFAA sometimes has written contracts with its clients that have confidentiality provisions. At 

other times, it makes oral promises to its clients about confidentiality. The moving parties put 

before the Court one example of KBFAA’s written confidentiality provisions, but at oral argument 

they agreed that its oral promises of confidentiality are not more restrictive than this written 

example. Based on that representation, the Court will use this one written example as a proxy for 

KBFAA’s confidentiality obligations toward its clients more generally.

So, let’s turn to the contractual language in the exemplar client agreement. Paragraph 27 

states in part that:

As used herein the term “Proprietary Information” shall mean all 

information (including the Contract, Project drawings, if any, and any 

documents created pursuant to this Contract) which the Contractor 

acquires (whether directly from the Owner or through the 

performance of the Work on the Project) concerning the present and 

future plans of the Owner, the operations of the Owner’s business, or 

the use of the Project or the Project’s design, construction, features, 

appearance, marketing, layout or décor (including the Project 

drawings, if any), and any information concerning the Project Site or 

Case 4:18-cv-03358-HSG Document 113 Filed 01/09/20 Page 4 of 9
5

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

United States District Court

Northern District of California

the Owner’s business, activities or property at the Project Site. . . . 

[T]he Contractor agrees that Contractor will not disclose any 

Proprietary Information to any person, either internally or externally, 

(except as directly necessary for the performance of the Work) 

without the prior and written consent of the Owner, and will not use, 

copy or distribute any Proprietary Information (or any document 

containing Proprietary Information) except to the extent directly 

necessary for the performance of the Work and/or as necessary to 

comply with the Contractor’s obligations under applicable law 

(including but not limited to reporting requirements to OSHA and 

other governmental agencies with jurisdiction over the Work or the 

Contractor). The Contractor agrees, upon completion of the Work, to 

return to the Owner or destroy all documents containing Proprietary 

Information (except for the Contractor’s record set of the Project 

drawings, if any). . . . Contractor shall not permit any of its employees 

or Subcontractors or their employees to publicize, email, distribute, 

or otherwise post photographs of the Work or the Site, or any other 

Proprietary Information, on the Internet, on social media sites 

(including but not limited to Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.), or in 

any other public or private forum.

Paragraph 23 states in part that:

Vendor shall not disclose, advertise nor publish the fact that Vendor 

has contracted to furnish Purchaser with the Goods or Services 

described herein, nor disclose any details connected with this 

Purchase Order, to any third party without the prior written approval 

of Purchaser. All Work Product, and any information, ideas, 

concepts, designs, discussions, work papers, memoranda, 

photographic materials, draft and final reports, employer or customer 

information, and other documents and materials provided to Vendor 

by or on behalf of Purchaser are the exclusive property of Purchaser 

and strictly confidential and shall not be used or discussed by Vendor 

in any manner, except as required to provide the Goods, complete the 

Services or as required to comply with applicable law.

The definition of “Proprietary Information” in paragraph 27 superficially seems very 

broad, until you read it closely and realize that it is limited to (1) information “which the 

Contractor acquires” either directly from the Owner or through the performance of the Project, and 

(2) “information concerning the Project Site or the Owner’s business, activities or property at the 

Project Site.” This makes clear that “Proprietary Information” is somebody else’s information; it 

can’t be the Contractor’s own information. Further, the acquired information has to concern (to 

briefly summarize) the Owner’s plans or business operations or the use of the Project or the 

Project Site or the Owner’s business at the Site.

In camera documents 1-10 don’t seem to have any of that. There are lots of design 

samples in those documents, but the designs seem to come from KBFAA, Johnson and Ken 

Case 4:18-cv-03358-HSG Document 113 Filed 01/09/20 Page 5 of 9
6

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

United States District Court

Northern District of California

Gangbar – not the clients. At oral argument, the moving parties argued that the designs in 

document 4 might have come from an independent contractor that was hired by a client, but they 

couldn’t say for sure. The burden of showing that a document is confidential rests with the 

moving parties, see Protective Order ¶ 6.3, and this kind of speculation isn’t good enough. Also, 

even if the drawings came from the client, there is no showing or explanation of how they are 

Proprietary Information. The Court reads the first sentence of paragraph 27 as follows: “As used 

herein the term ‘Proprietary Information’ shall mean [1] all information (including the Contract, 

Project drawings, if any, and any documents created pursuant to this Contract) which the 

Contractor acquires (whether directly from the Owner or through the performance of the Work on 

the Project) concerning [a] the present and future plans of the Owner, [b] the operations of the 

Owner’s business, or [c] the use of the Project or the Project’s design, construction, features, 

appearance, marketing, layout or décor (including the Project drawings, if any), and [2] any 

information concerning the Project Site or the Owner’s business, activities or property at the 

Project Site.” Project drawings received from a client or the client’s intermediary have to satisfy 

the “concerning” clause, and here there is no explanation of how they do so.

There is also some discussion of client preferences and budgeting in some of the emails, 

but it’s not enough to constitute Proprietary Information. Again, it matters to the Court how 

paragraph 27 is written. Emails about design preferences and budgets are certainly about “the 

Project’s design, construction, features, appearance,” but they are not about “the use of the Project 

or the Project’s design, construction, features, appearance.” Conceivably, “information 

concerning the Project Site” could be read to include absolutely every communication about the 

project, since at a high level the purpose of the project is to install something at the site, but that 

phrase is paired with “or the Owner’s business, activities or property at the Project Site,” making 

clear that the focus of that provision is the owner’s business and property. 

The Court notes that some of these documents are almost seven years old and relate to

projects that were long since completed, yet KBFAA did not return or destroy them, which 

paragraph 27 requires for Proprietary Information. This seems to confirm that the emails do not 

contain Proprietary Information. Further, as to the last sentence of paragraph 27, the in camera 

Case 4:18-cv-03358-HSG Document 113 Filed 01/09/20 Page 6 of 9
7

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

United States District Court

Northern District of California

documents do not contain any photographs of the Work or the Site.

Now let’s turn to paragraph 23. The fourth sentence states: “All Work Product, and any 

information, ideas, concepts, designs, discussions, work papers, memoranda, photographic 

materials, draft and final reports, employer or customer information, and other documents and 

materials provided to Vendor by or on behalf of Purchaser are the exclusive property of Purchaser 

and strictly confidential and shall not be used or discussed by Vendor in any manner, except as 

required to provide the Goods, complete the Services or as required to comply with applicable 

law.” (emphasis added). The Court reads the italicized words to modify everything that precedes 

them. That is the only interpretation that makes it sensible that all of those items should be 

deemed “the exclusive property of Purchaser.” It is clear from the documents submitted that 

KBFAA’s designs for new clients are sometimes based on designs for prior projects, so it can’t be 

the case that this contract makes the ideas, concepts and designs that originate with KBFAA or its 

contractors the client’s exclusive property. The intent of the provision is to safeguard client 

information. Further, the term “information” in that sentence is vague and could potentially be 

stretched to include discussions of design preferences and budgets – or anything, really – but the 

Court is inclined to interpret the word in light of the company it keeps and give it a narrower 

meaning. So construed, the fourth sentence of paragraph 23 does not reach anything in documents 

1-10.

The third sentence of paragraph 23 is a bit of a conundrum. It states: “Vendor shall not 

disclose, advertise nor publish the fact that Vendor has contracted to furnish Purchaser with the 

Goods or Services described herein, nor disclose any details connected with this Purchase Order, 

to any third party without the prior written approval of Purchaser.” That’s pretty sweeping. 

Emails about bids and negotiations don’t necessarily reveal that a final contract was entered into, 

but they suggest it, and the reference to “any details connected with the Purchase Order” is 

sufficiently broad that it could conceivably reach emails about bids and negotiations. Further, this

sentence doesn’t have an escape clause for disclosures required by law, like paragraph 27 does and 

like the fourth sentence of paragraph 23 does. At oral argument, KBFAA stated that its 

production of documents in this litigation somehow did not violate this sentence in paragraph 23. 

Case 4:18-cv-03358-HSG Document 113 Filed 01/09/20 Page 7 of 9
8

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

United States District Court

Northern District of California

KBFAA correctly noted that a contract must be read as a whole and that it did not put the whole 

contract before the Court. The implication of KBFAA’s argument is that if the Court were to read 

the contract as a whole, it would see that the third sentence of paragraph 23 is less stringent than it 

appears. Since KBFAA has the burden to establish that the documents at issue are worthy of a 

confidentiality designation, the Court will accept KBFAA’s assertion that something about the 

contract as a whole vitiates the confidentiality seemingly required by this sentence. But in that 

case, the Court will not rely on this sentence as a basis for finding that KBFAA contractually 

promised to keep such information confidential, since this sentence apparently is not the whole 

story. 

So here is where we are: the moving parties say that KBFAA makes oral and sometimes 

written assurances of confidentiality to its clients, the moving parties agree that the oral promises 

are no more stringent than the written example provided to the Court, and the moving parties have 

not demonstrated that documents 1-10 come within the scope of those confidentiality promises in 

the written example. Indeed, at oral argument counsel for the moving parties stated that he was 

not prepared to discuss the specific provisions of the written contract excerpted in his filings and 

how they did or did not apply to the documents in question. The protective order states that “[t]he 

burden of persuasion in [a confidentiality] challenge proceeding shall be on the Designating 

Party.” Protective Order ¶ 6.3. The moving parties have failed to persuade.

Now let’s turn to the first category of documents, the six financial documents that the 

moving parties state contain their financial information. For these documents, the moving parties 

state that the confidential information is their own, so they are not relying on promises to keep 

somebody else’s information confidential. These documents are bids, purchase orders and 

invoices that describe products (such as how big they are and what they are made out of) and the 

price for them. These documents are between five and six years old. At oral argument, the 

moving parties stated that all of the projects at issue have been completed.

It’s hard to see how these documents are confidential. They don’t relate to ongoing or 

upcoming projects, where the disclosure of bids could unfairly harm the moving parties. At oral 

argument, the moving parties argued that profit margin could be inferred from these documents. 

Case 4:18-cv-03358-HSG Document 113 Filed 01/09/20 Page 8 of 9
9

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

United States District Court

Northern District of California

There is nothing in the documents themselves that discusses profit margin, but maybe someone 

with background in this specific industry could look at the product specifications and estimate a 

production cost and from that infer a profit margin. That doesn’t change the fact that this 

information is stale.

The Court also considers the moving parties’ conduct in making these confidentiality 

designations. The protective order requires the “Exercise of Restraint and Care in Designating 

Material for Protection.” Protective Order ¶ 5.1. It states that “[m]ass, indiscriminate, or 

routinized designations are prohibited.” Id. Here, Johnson made a blanket confidentiality 

designation of every single document he produced. If Johnson had made some attempt to 

distinguish some financial documents that were truly confidential from others that were not, the 

Court would at least have the benefit of Johnson’s own distinctions, which would have some 

evidentiary utility. But the indiscriminate designation of everything, no matter what or how stale, 

combined with a very high-level explanation of competitive harm – someone could figure out 

profit – suggests that no real thought went into these confidentiality designations. Thus, as to the 

six financial documents at issue, the moving parties have similarly failed to persuade.

KBFAA and Johnson’s administrative motion to retain confidentiality designations, ECF 

No. 100, is DENIED.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: January 9, 2020

THOMAS S. HIXSON

United States Magistrate Judge

Case 4:18-cv-03358-HSG Document 113 Filed 01/09/20 Page 9 of 9