AGI Suretrack, LLC v. Tackett et al

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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF KANSAS
AGI SURETRACK, LLC,
Plaintiff,
v. 	Case No. 23-2372-JWB
OPISYSTEMS INC., INTEGRIS USA,
LLC, SETH TACKETT, and ADAM
WEISS,
Defendants.
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
This matter is before the court on Plaintiff’s motion to file an exhibit conventionally and
under seal (Doc. 305) and Plaintiff and Defendants’ motions to seal an extensive list of briefs and
exhibits (Docs. 306, 323, 324, 338, 342, 343, 344). For the reasons stated herein, Plaintiff’s motion
to file an exhibit conventionally is DENIED WITHOUT PREJUDICE and Plaintiff and
Defendants’ motions to seal are DENIED WITHOUT PREJUDICE.
I. 	Facts
This 	case 	involves 	alleged 	trade 	secret 	misappropriation, 	breach 	of 	employment
agreements, and related claims arising out of a dispute between competitors in the grain storage
monitoring industry. Plaintiff alleges that OPISystems Inc. and Integris USA, LLC (“Corporate
Defendants”) hired several of its former employees—including Seth Tackett and Adam Weiss the
(“Individual 	Defendants”) 	(collectively 	“Defendants”)—and 	used 	Plaintiff’s 	confidential
information and proprietary source code to develop and market competing products. 	(See Doc.
214.) The parties have both moved for summary judgment (Docs. 291, 301); both have moved to
exclude the testimony of three different experts (Docs. 294, 296, 298); and Defendants’ have
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objected (Doc. 339) to the magistrate judge’s report and recommendation (“R&R”) (Doc. 308).
Both parties have also filed a plethora of motions seeking leave to file under seal many of the
briefs in support of the above-mentioned motions as well as the majority of exhibits in support of
the same.
II. 	Standard
“Courts have long recognized a common-law right of access to judicial records.” Mann v.
Boatright, 477 F.3d 1140, 1149 (10th Cir. 2007) (citing Nixon v. Warner Commc'ns, Inc., 435 U.S.
589, 599 (1978); Lanphere & Urbaniak v. Colo., 21 F.3d 1508, 1511 (10th Cir. 1994)). 	“This
right, however, is not absolute. The ‘presumption of access . . . can be rebutted if countervailing
interests heavily outweigh the public interests in access.’” Id. (quoting Rushford v. New Yorker
Magazine, Inc., 846 F.2d 249, 253 (4th Cir. 1988)).
“The party seeking to overcome the presumption bears the burden of showing some
significant interest that outweighs the presumption.” Id.; see also Ad Astra Recovery Servs., Inc.
v. Heath, No. 18-1145-JWB, 2020 WL 6742787, at *1 (D. Kan. Nov. 17, 2020) (“The party
seeking to seal the documents must articulate ‘a real and substantial interest that justifies depriving
the public of access to the records that inform [the court’s] decision-making process.’” (quoting
Williams v. FedEx Corp. Servs., 849 F.3d 889, 905 (10th Cir. 2017))). “[T]he public’s interest in
access to judicial records is lessened when the contents are not used to determine the litigant’s
substantive legal rights.” Deherrera v. Decker Truck Line, Inc., 820 F.3d 1147, 1162 n.8 (10th
Cir. 2016) (internal citations omitted). 	“‘[W]here documents are used to determine litigants’
substantive legal rights, a strong presumption of access attaches.’” Colony Ins. Co. v. Burke, 698
F.3d 1222, 1242 (10th Cir. 2012) (quoting Lugosch v. Pyramid Co. of Onondaga, 435 F.3d 110,
121 (2d Cir. 2006))). 	Even when motions to seal are unopposed, the court must independently
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decide whether sealing is appropriate. See McWilliams v. Dinapoli, 40 F. 4th 1118, 1131 (10th
Cir. 2022) (“[T]he right of access protects the public, not just the parties. So [courts] independently
decide whether sealing is appropriate even when no party objects.”). To meet their burden in their
respective motions, Plaintiff and Defendants “must come forward with evidence as to the nature
of the public or private harm that would result if it were so filed.” Heartland Surgical Specialty
Hosp., LLC v. Midwest Div., Inc., No. 05-2164, 2007 WL 101858, at *5 (D. Kan. Jan. 10, 2007).
Under D. Kan. Rule 5.4.2(c), motions to seal must include the following:
(1) a description of the specific portions of the document, without attaching the
document in question or revealing the confidential information, that the Proponent
asks the court to maintain under seal or allow to be redacted, which must be
narrowly tailored to the asserted confidentiality interest;
(2) the confidentiality interest to be protected and why such interest outweighs the
presumption of public access (stipulations between the parties or stipulated
protective orders, alone, are insufficient to justify restriction);
(3) a clearly defined and serious injury that would result in the absence of restricting
public access;
(4) why no lesser alternative is practicable or why restricting public access will
adequately protect the confidentiality interest in question; . . .
See also Bad Rhino Games, LLC v. Turn Me Up Games, Inc., No. 23-2303-JWB, 2024 WL
5008619, at *1 (D. Kan. Dec. 5, 2024) (explaining that the Tenth Circuit standards for filing
information under seal are “incorporated into this court’s rules”); Uhlig LLC v. CoreLogic, Inc.,
No. 21-2543-DDC, 2024 WL 1703557, at *1 (D. Kan. Apr. 19, 2024) (“The party seeking to deny
public access also must comply with our local rule.”).
III. 	Analysis
Plaintiff has filed four motions to file under seal. 	(Docs. 306, 324, 338, 344.) 	All four
include the same request to allow the parties to file exhibits under seal when the material has been
designated under the protective order previously entered in this case. 	(Doc. 35.) 	But merely
because documents are designated under a protective order is “insufficient to justify restriction.”
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D. Kan. Rule 5.4.2(c)(2). Beyond pointing to the protective order, however, Plaintiff asserts only
in general terms that the documents contain trade secrets, proprietary information, non-public
business information, and other commercially sensitive information, and that public disclosure
would cause competitive harm by making that information available to business competitors. The
court has reviewed Plaintiff’s arguments, and they do not sufficiently identify a clearly defined
harm from the public filing of these voluminous exhibits. In order to file a document under seal,
the party seeking to do so is required to identify “a real and substantial interest that justifies
depriving the public of access to the records that inform our decision-making process.” Williams,
849 F.3d at 905 (citation omitted). Altogether, Plaintiff currently seeks to file over 3,600 pages of
briefs and supporting exhibits under seal. The court will not endeavor to wade through thousands
of pages to determine whether any information contained in these documents should be sealed or
redacted.1 Further, Plaintiff has made no attempt to comply with this court’s rule to show why no
lesser alternative is practicable, such as merely redacting the portions of the exhibit that contain
trade secret information. 	Therefore, Plaintiff’s motions (Docs. 306, 324, 338, 344.) are denied
without prejudice.
Now to Defendants, who have filed three motions to file under seal. (Docs. 323, 342, 343.)
As with Plaintiff, all three include the same general request to allow the parties to file exhibits
under 	seal 	when 	the 	documents 	have 	been 	marked 	as 	“HIGHLY 	CONFIDENTIAL 	–
ATTORNEYS’ EYES ONLY” or “CONFIDENTIAL,” asserting that sealing is necessary to
comply with the protective order. Defendants likewise contend, without further elaboration, that
1 Plaintiff has alternatively requested leave to redact certain portions of briefs and documents that it emailed to
chambers in compliance with D. Kan. Rule 5.4.2(c). However, by the court’s count, of the approximately 98 briefs
and exhibits that Plaintiff seeks to redact, the court has only received approximately 9 documents with redactions
properly highlighted in compliance with D. Kan. Rule 5.4.2. That leaves the court to conclude that Plaintiff wants the
remaining approximately 89 documents entirely sealed. In any event, Plaintiff’s motions fall well short of the required
showing under D. Kan. Rule 5.4.2 to merit the plethora of redactions it seeks. That request is, therefore, also denied.
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the exhibits contain proprietary, competitive, and commercially sensitive information and that
public access would result in clearly defined and severe competitive harm. Again, the court has
reviewed Defendant’s arguments, and they do not sufficiently identify any clearly defined harm
from the public filing of these voluminous exhibits. Defendants have failed to identify “a real and
substantial interest that justifies depriving the public of access to the records that inform our
decision-making process.” Williams, 849 F.3d at 905 (citation omitted). Altogether, Defendants
seek to file almost 1,800 pages of briefs and supporting exhibits under seal and, unlike Plaintiff,
Defendants only seek to seal entire documents, rather than redact portions therein. 	Again,
Defendants have failed to comply with the strict requirements under D. Kan. Rule 5.4.2(c).
Therefore, Defendant’s motions are denied without prejudice. 2
In summary, the court reminds the parties that litigation in federal court is a fundamentally
public exercise. “A trial is a public event. What transpires in the court room is public property.”
Craig v. Harney, 331 U.S. 367, 374 (1947). Even if certain items are sealed at this stage of the
litigation, they will not be sealed at trial. If this case goes to trial, all the evidence will be public.
If parties want to litigate in private, then they should agree to arbitration. That’s what arbitration
is for. 	Moreover, these efforts to seal all sorts of documents and briefs place an extraordinary
burden on the courts. 	The parties have asked this court to engage in a detailed review of
approximately 5,000 pages of documents in order to determine that each and every page contains
material that ought not be subject to the public’s right of access to these materials. It might well
take longer to do that than to try the whole case. That is an incredible waste of limited judicial
resources.
2 The court notes that some of the motions seeking to seal or redact cover the same documents. As such, if the parties
intend to file renewed motions, they are encouraged to collaborate in order to identify and reduce duplicative requests.
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The court is cognizant that litigants may hold legitimate proprietary interests—trade secrets
chief among them—in shielding certain information from public view, and nothing in this order
should be read to suggest otherwise. But it is hard to imagine a scenario in which such interests
could justify sealing an entire brief, an entire deposition transcript, or an entire expert report.
Filings of that nature are not composed wholly of trade secrets or other protectable material; they
consist in large part of legal argument, background facts, and procedural matters. Rather, in almost
every case there will be far smaller and more concise portions within the whole—such as, a
segment of source code—that may clear the high bar required to overcome the common law
presumption of public access. That is why this court’s local rule requires that any request to seal
or redact be “narrowly tailored to the asserted confidentiality interest.” D. Kan. Rule 5.4.2(c)(1).
Accordingly, any renewed motion must identify the specific portions of each document for which
protection is sought and explain why sealing or redacting those portions is justified. See Burke,
698 F.3d at 1242 (explaining that a motion to seal or redact must articulate real and substantial
interests which justify depriving the public of access to records which inform the court’s decision
process). Should a renewed motion fail to comply with this strict standard, it will be summarily
denied.
IV. 	Conclusion
THEREFORE, Plaintiff and Defendants’ motions to seal (Docs. 306, 323, 324, 338, 342,
343, 344) are DENIED WITHOUT PREJUDICE. 	Any renewed motion to redact must comply
with D. Kan. Rule 5.4.2 as to each redaction requested. 	Accordingly, the clerk is directed to
STRIKE Docs. 293, 295, 297, 299, 303, 309, 311, 313, 315, 317, 319, 325, 330, 332, 335, and
340, including all attachments.
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FURTHER, Plaintiff’s motion to file an exhibit conventionally and under seal (Doc. 305)
is DENIED WITHOUT PREJUDICE. Plaintiff’s request to conventionally file the external drive
described in the motion is denied because it is unclear to the court for what purpose it needs a
complete forensic copy of the original USB drive that contains AGI source code.
FURTHER, counsel for both parties are ORDERED to contact chambers in order to
schedule a case management conference to discuss next steps in light of this ruling.
IT IS SO ORDERED. Dated this 15th day of July, 2026.
_s/ John W. Broomes_________________
JOHN W. BROOMES
CHIEF UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
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