UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF INDIANA

FORT WAYNE DIVISION

CAROL A. HOBSON, )

)

Plaintiff, )

)

v. ) CAUSE NO. 1:13-CV-54

)

TRANS UNION, )

)

Defendant. )

OPINION AND ORDER

Before the Court is a revised proposed Protective Agreement and Order submitted by the

parties for the Court’s approval pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(c). (Docket #

72.) As the proposed order is still deficient in one material respect, it will be DENIED.

The proposed order still does not define “Confidential Information,” and simply allows

any party to designate material as confidential. The proposed order provides: “Any party or nonparty producing or filing documents or other materials in this action containing confidential

information may designate such materials and the information contained therein subject to this

Protective Agreement and Order by typing or stamping on the front of the document, or on the

portion(s) of the document for which confidential treatment is designated, “Confidential.”

(Proposed Protective Agreement and Order ¶ 1.) 

As previously explained, a protective order must extend only to “properly demarcated

categor[ies] of legitimately confidential information.” Citizens First Nat’l Bank of Princeton v.

Cincinnati Ins. Co., 178 F.3d 943, 946 (7th Cir. 1999) (noting that a broad protective order

granting carte blanche discretion to a party is invalid); see also MRS Invs. v. Meridian Sports,
Inc., No. IP 99-1954-C-F/M, 2002 WL 193140, at *1 (S.D. Ind. Feb. 6, 2002) (rejecting

proposed protective order because categories of protected information were overly broad and

vague); Cook Inc. v. Boston Scientific Corp., 206 F.R.D. 244, 248-49 (S.D. Ind. 2001); Andrew

Corp. v. Rossi, 180 F.R.D. 338, 342 (N.D. Ill. 1998). Although the recitals of the proposed order

refer to Defendant’s “trade secrets, confidential research, development, technology and other

proprietary information of value”; Defendant’s documents that “contain business, financial, and

commercially sensitive information”; and Plaintiff’s “income, credit and other confidential

information,” the order fails to adequately flesh out these topics in properly demarcated

categories of “Confidential Information” in the body of the order. See Cincinnati Insurance, 178

F.3d at 945 (“The order is so loose that it amounts, as we suggested at the outset, to giving each

party carte blanche to decide what portions of the record shall be kept secret. Such an order is

invalid.”). And in any event, categories such as “confidential research,” “other proprietary

information,” “business, financial, and commercially sensitive information,” and “other

confidential information” are overly broad and vague. See id. at 946 (“There is no objection to an

order that allows the parties to keep their trade secrets (or some other properly demarcated

category of legitimately confidential information) out of the public record, provided the judge (1)

satisfies himself that the parties know what a trade secret is and are acting in good faith in

deciding which parts of the record are trade secrets . . . .”). 

For this reason, the Court DENIES approval of the revised proposed Protective

Agreement and Order submitted by the parties. (Docket # 72.) The parties may, however, file a

motion requesting the Court’s approval of a revised protective order that cures the identified

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deficiency and is consistent with the requirements of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(c)(1)

and Seventh Circuit case law.

SO ORDERED. 

Enter for this 6th day of February, 2014. 

S/ Roger B. Cosbey 

Roger B. Cosbey,

United States Magistrate Judge

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