Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
DC-14-01443
TRINITY EAST ENERGY, LLC,
Plaintiff,
v.
CITY OF DALLAS, TEXAS,
Defendant.
This Protective Order shall govern the handling, use, and disclosure of certain
discovery material, which shall include documents, depositions and deposition exhibits,
interrogatory answers, responses to requests for admissions, and other written, recorded,
electronically stored, or graphic matter or information, including the contents of any of
the foregoing, produced (whether pursuant to an Order from Court, the Texas Rules of
Except with the prior written consent of the producing Party, any Discovery
Material produced to any Party in this Lawsuit shall be used solely for purposes of this
Lawsuit and shall not be used for any other purpose, personal or commercial or
otherwise, or disclosed to any person or used for any purpose, except as described below.
3.
Except with the prior written consent of the producing Party, any Discovery
Material that the producing Party or entity designates as Confidential shall be treated as
Protected Discovery Material, shall be used solely for purposes of this Lawsuit, and
shall not be used for any other purpose, personal or commercial or otherwise, or disclosed
to any person, published in any manner or media, including without limitation electronic
or print media, blogs, social media, social networking sites, newspapers, newsletters, listserves, chat rooms, radio, or television, or used for any purpose, except as described in
paragraphs 6 through 9 below. Any Party producing documents may designate them as
Confidential Information by marking the pages, either through the Bates labeling process
or original document creation, Confidential. A designation of Confidential shall be
made by stamping (or affixing) Confidential (a) on each page of the Discovery
Material to be treated as Confidential or Outside Counsel Only or (b) in the case of
electronically stored information, on the medium (e.g. CD or DVD) containing the
information. In addition, such designation may be made (but is not required) with respect
to electronically stored information by use of any electronic or other means reasonably
calculated to provide notice that electronically stored information is claimed to be
STIPULATION AND PROTECTIVE ORDER
REGARDING CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION
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Discovery Material treatment for each document, either by Bates number identifying the
Party or as part of the designation itself.
4.
after a good faith evaluation and belief that such documents and/or things are, in fact,
entitled to such protection under law. Confidential information shall include sensitive
commercial, financial, or proprietary information or documentation.
5.
to protection as Protected Discovery Material hereunder, counsel for the Party asserting
such protection shall state on the record the specific portion or information that is claimed
to be entitled to protection by this Protective Order as Confidential. Counsel shall have
the right to exclude from the deposition any person who is not authorized by this
Protective Order to receive the designated Protected Discovery Material, but such right of
exclusion shall apply only during periods of examination or testimony constituting,
involving, or relating to such designated Protected Discovery Material. Upon preparation
of the transcript of the deposition, the stenographic reporter shall segregate the testimony
transcribed and designated as Protected Discovery Material into a separate transcript
temporarily designated as Confidential. The designating Party shall thereafter, within ten
(10) business days after receipt of the full transcript (with the pages containing the
Protected Discovery Material excluded) and segregated transcript, ratify or amend, in
STIPULATION AND PROTECTIVE ORDER
REGARDING CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION
PAGE 3
writing, the oral designation of Protected Discovery Material, including designating any
additional testimony as Confidential to the extent the designating Party believes in
good faith that such testimony warrants such designation. In so doing, the designating
Party will only designate as Confidential those pages or parts of pages of the transcript,
and any exhibits thereto, that actually contain information claimed to be entitled to such
designation. After the passage of the ten-business-day period described herein, any
portion of the transcript and exhibits not confirmed to be Confidential or not identified
for the first time as being Confidential in writing as containing Protected Discovery
Material shall cease to be so designated and so protected, and the deposition transcript
shall be corrected accordingly.
6.
(b)
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7.
(c)
(d)
(e)
(f)
(g)
paragraphs 6(b), 6(c), 6(d), 6(f) or 6(g), counsel for the Party seeking to make such
disclosure shall inform each such person that the material is Protected Discovery Material
PAGE 5
and may not be disclosed or used except as provided in this Protective Order.
Furthermore, prior to disclosure of any Protected Discovery Material to any person
pursuant to paragraph 6(b), 6(c), 6(d), or 6(g) hereof, the person shall first:
8.
(a)
(b)
to any disclosure pursuant to any request under any open records statute, rule, ordinance,
or policy, including without limitation the Texas Public Information Act (the PIA) or
the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) (collectively, an Open Records
Request), each of which includes an exception for information that is related to pending
litigation and information that may be considered confidential or proprietary. To the
extent a Party receives an Open Records Request, the Party must advise the producing
Party whose Protected Discovery Material is potentially covered by the Open Records
Request of the receipt and terms of the Open Records Request within five (5) days of its
receipt and must use all reasonable means available to assert any applicable exception to
disclosure, up to and including requesting an opinion from the Office of the Attorney
General of Texas as to the applicability of the exceptions to the Protected Discovery
Material. The Party subject to the Open Records Request shall include the producing
Party on any non-privileged correspondence or notices relating to the Open Records
Request and shall, within three business days of receipt of any non-privileged
STIPULATION AND PROTECTIVE ORDER
REGARDING CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION
PAGE 6
communications from other parties relating to the Open Records Request, forward such
communications or notices to the producing Party.
9.
hearing or trial procedures established by the Court for the protection of such Protected
Discovery Material. Counsel intending to offer Protected Discovery Material to the
Court as evidence or otherwise shall ensure that, before disclosing the Protected
Discovery Material to any person other than the Court and its personnel, such person is
first provided with a copy of this Protective Order and agrees to be bound by it as set
forth in Paragraph 7.
10.
In the event that any Party to this Lawsuit disagrees with the designation by the
designating Party of any information as Protected Discovery Material, the Parties shall
first try to resolve such dispute in good faith on an informal basis. If the dispute cannot
be resolved informally, the Party challenging the Protected Discovery Material
designation shall seek appropriate relief from the Court within 20 days of notification that
the designating Party refuses to withdraw the designation.
The Confidential
(b)
(c)
PAGE 7
such third party obtained the document in any illegal manner, and
the disclosure will not violate any non-disclosure agreement in
which the third party is bound.
12.
PAGE 8
copies of a document and any such copy or substantially identical copy is designated with
a lesser degree of confidentiality than any other copy, all such identical or substantially
identical documents shall be treated in accordance with the most restrictive designation
on any copy or substantially identical copy once the inconsistent designation is known.
The producing Party shall be responsible for informing the Party receiving the
inconsistently designated information of the inconsistent designation.
Absent such
notification the Party receiving the inconsistently designated information shall not be
deemed to have violated this Protective Order should said Party fail to treat the unmarked
material as Protected Discovery Material; however, if the Party receiving the
inconsistently designated information has knowledge of the inconsistent designation, it
shall so inform the producing Party and treat all copies or substantially identical copies in
accordance with the most confidential designation.
14.
The provisions of this Protective Order shall continue to be effective after the
conclusion of this Lawsuit. This Protective Order may not be modified except upon
written agreement by all the Parties hereto or by further order of the Court.
15.
In the event of a proven violation of this Protective Order by any of the Parties in
this Lawsuit or others designated in Paragraph 6 above, all Parties acknowledge that the
STIPULATION AND PROTECTIVE ORDER
REGARDING CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION
PAGE 9
offending Party or persons may be subject to sanctions determined in the discretion of the
Court.
16.
Nothing in this Protective Order shall be deemed to preclude any Party from
seeking and obtaining, upon an appropriate showing, additional protection with respect to
the confidentiality of documents. Nothing in this Protective Order shall prevent any
Party from using its own Protected Discovery Material in any manner.
17.
Neither this Protective Order, the production of any Discovery Material, nor the
Within 90 days of the conclusion of this Lawsuit, including all appeals or the
running of all time to appeal, a producing Party may request the return or destruction of
any Protected Discovery Material it produced. In response to such a request, all such
Discovery Material, including all originals and copies, shall be either returned or
destroyed within 45 days; and, if destroyed, an affidavit to that effect shall be provided
by the receiving Partys attorney to the producing Party within 15 days.
19.
The requirements of this Protective Order shall apply to any designated documents
produced in this Lawsuit before the date this Protective Order is executed.
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EXHIBIT A
independent of any work on the Lawsuit); and that he or she agrees to submit to the
jurisdiction of the Court in the Lawsuit for the sole purpose of enforcement of the terms
of the Protective Order.
My name is
; my date of birth is
; and
my address is
I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing statements are true and correct.
Executed in
of
County, State of
, 201__.
DECLARANT
, on the
day