"Public access [to judicial records] serves to promote trustworthiness of the judicial process, to curb judicial abuses, and to provide the public with a more complete understanding of the judicial system, including a better perception of its fairness."
Court records are generally public records, embarrassing as they might be for the parties.
"The public has every right to understand how the public and elected officials of the Town of Wilton and the Wilton Public Schools in the exercise of their best judgment sought to resolve this case."
“But increasingly, courts are sealing documents in run-of-the-mill cases where the parties simply prefer to keep things under wraps.”
May plaintiffs alleged sexual assault proceed pseudonymously, when the defendant is being publicly named?
"[O]nce a matter is brought before a court for resolution, it is no longer solely the parties' case, but also the public's case."
"It is simply not reasonable for a plaintiff to bring a case alleging that his constitutional rights were violated by state officials and not expect the facts on which those officials based their actions to be included in the public record of a case."
Plus a special appearance by The Princess Bride and Weekend at Bernie's.
Federal court holds that documents accompanying motions are presumptively accessible even if the case settles before the court decides the motion.
"These allegations stand at the heart of plaintiffs' claims, and sealing them would make this litigation virtually incomprehensible to the public."
The judge had earlier ordered search engines and web sites to remove materials about a employment discrimination lawsuit.
Don't just file the document unsealed, and then ask for sealing
A judge rightly speaks out against them.
"unsubstantiated allegations" that are "irrelevant ... and therefore inadmissible" can be redacted from the public version of the filings.
"This Court cannot be a party ... to such a deception." So holds a federal Magistrate Judge in rejecting the parties' joint motion to seal the complaint in the case, after it had been settled.
So says the Delaware Court of Chancery: "If the information currently redacted remains so, the public will have no means to understand the dispute MetTel has asked the Court to adjudicate."
"Plaintiffs decided to file a publicly available case and then ask the Court to protect them because defendant might say horrible things about them throughout the course of this litigation.... But harsh words are not a basis to seal a case, especially where it appears that both sides have no qualms about tearing each other down."
So holds a Minnesota trial court, because ordinary public access is precluded as a result of the epidemic.
In 2014, more than half of all California wiretaps (and one sixth of all the wiretaps in the U.S.) were authorized by one judge in Riverside County.
"In nearly all civil and criminal litigation ..., one party asserts that the allegations leveled against it by another party are patently false"; but "if the purported falsity of the complaint's allegations were sufficient to seal an entire case, then the law would recognize a presumption to seal instead of a presumption of openness."
"Plaintiff would have his allegations litigated in a star chamber with a jury of ordinary citizens presumably barred from discussing the case after their service in a closed courtroom."
An attempt to protect litigant privacy meant that binding precedent was vanished from Westlaw.
So concludes the Louisiana Supreme Court, in allowing a prisoner access to the jury vote breakdown in his case—quite important given the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling rejecting Louisiana nonunanimous convictions.
Newspapers often argue against the sealing of court records; here the newspaper argued in favor.
The question remains pending before the Ohio Court of Appeals.
The Cincinnati Enquirer and I have just filed a petition seeking this, in the Ohio Court of Appeals.
When can libel plaintiffs, suing over allegedly false claims of sexual misconduct, sue pseudonymously? When can defendants defend pseudonymously?
"CBP asks the Court to close the stable door to keep an invisible horse from bolting. But that stable door sat open for five months before CBP asked the Court to secure it. Neither the Court nor CBP know whether the horse is gone, but the possibility that it's still be there can't outweigh public's interest in open doors."
"Judges often do not respond well to unreasonable efforts to keep as much out of the public record as possible. At least not this judge."
