Samson v. UnitedHealthCare Services Inc, 2:19-cv-00175

Frantz Samson brings a class action against United Healthcare Services (UHC) alleging violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA).
The Court had previously certified two classes: the “Wrong Number Class” and the “Do Not Call Class.”
UHC later filed a motion to decertify these classes, which led to both sides submitting documents and information that they sought to keep sealed.
The parties subsequently reached a settlement in principle, and the motion to decertify was withdrawn, but the Court still needed to decide which previously filed information should remain sealed.
Materials sought to be sealed included call transcripts, call audio recordings, and third-party data, some of which potentially implicated personal and medical privacy concerns.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Seal call transcripts	Should seal to protect member privacy	Should seal for PII and HIPAA-covered information	Granted; call transcripts remain sealed due to compelling privacy and medical grounds
Seal third-party telecommunications data	No explicit compelling reason given	Sealing needed to respect third parties’ confidentiality	Denied; no compelling reason, and third parties did not request sealing
Seal call audio recordings	Should be sealed because they cannot be redacted	Agreed recordings should be kept under seal	Granted in part; kept temporarily sealed pending request to unseal
Seal UHC-designated confidential info	Information previously sealed, still confidential	Agreed information should remain sealed	Granted; information remains sealed as before

Nixon v. Warner Commnc’ns, Inc., 435 U.S. 589 (right of public access to court records)
Foltz v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 331 F.3d 1122 (presumption of public access in court records)
Kamakana v. City & Cty. of Honolulu, 447 F.3d 1172 (courts must find a compelling reason to seal judicial records)