In this dec action revolving around insurance coverage issues, the plaintiff insurance company suing for a declaration of no coverage under a homeowner's policy, stipulated with the defendants-policyholders to stay the proceedings and to seal the part of the insurance policy that the plaintiff itself attached to its complaint for a declaratory judgment.
The Court giveth and the Court taketh away here.
The Court granted the stipulated motion to stay after setting a hearing because, even though the parties joined together to request a stay, their pleadings were insufficient to plead relief.
However, their joint motion to seal was denied. The parties together failed in their attempt to show good cause for sealing the entire policy that is attached to the complaint. The coverage issues in the case arise in large measure from that insurance contract. That makes it a "dispositive" pleading, directly related to the claims in this case.
So, despite the stipulation to conceal the policy, and although the Court authorized the defendant insurance company to remove the exhibit from the record and to refile a new exhibit after removing personal identifying information from it, nonetheless on this record all the other forms and endorsements of the insurance policy will in short be public records when the policy is refiled in the Court file, unless and until good cause for sealing it is shown. See Kemper Independence Ins. Co. v. Wells, No.: 1:17-cv-01612-AWI-SAB, 2018 WL 558791 (E.D. Cal. January 25, 2018).
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