A federal district court in California granted the Washington Post’s motion to intervene in the case to request the immediate unsealing of court documents relating to Trump University “Playbooks.” These items had been filed as sealed exhibits by Plaintiff Art Cohen (“Plaintiff”) as part of his Class Certification Motion against Defendants Trump University, LLC and Donald J. Trump (“Defendant”).
Plaintiff brings litigation individually and on behalf of others who enrolled in Trump University, a for profit education company teaching real estate tips and practices. Plaintiff alleges that Defendant misrepresented his role in curating Trump University curricula and instructors, and that Defendant is liable for mail and wire fraud. This initial matter was allowed to proceed under the court’s February 21, 2014 ruling, denying Defendant’s motion to dismiss the complaint as time-barred under the Clayton Act. At issue now is whether 153 particular pages, from four different documents, contain Defendant’s trade secrets and should therefore remain sealed.
The court granted the Post’s motion to intervene because much of the contested information was duplicative of a 2010 Playbook which had previously been posted online in full by the political news website, Politico, thereby destroying Defendant’s trade secret and confidentiality claims. The Court further found that the Playbooks contained “very routine and commonplace information.” The Court therefore dismissed as moot Defendant’s claims that the special compilation of information itself constituted an “arguable” trade secret (see August 28, 2014 Order, aka “Gallo Order,” in the related case Low v. Trump University, LLC., No. 3:10-cv-00940-GPC-WVG, ECF No. 343). The Court also recognized the public’s strong interest in accessing court materials related to Defendant, who is the presumptive Republican nominee in the 2016 presidential race.
Plaintiff was ordered to file unsealed versions of most playbooks, with only phone numbers and non-corporate e-mail addresses redacted. A sampling of these documents can be found here: http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/05/31/480214102/trump-university-playbooks-released-by-court-advise-being-courteous-to-media
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