Federal Circuit Bulk Unsealing Plans

An interesting order today, from the Federal Circuit:

The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit intends to unseal certain paper case records in accordance with Federal Circuit Rule 25.1(a)(1) in order to accomplish accession to the National Archives and Records Administration. Parties, counsel, or other impacted individuals with an interest in keeping sealed records in any case identified in the court's order must show cause no later than 60 days from the date of the order why those records must remain sealed. No response is needed unless parties or counsel intent to contest the unsealing. Please refer to the order for further details, including how to submit a response.

Notice of this order is being sent to all active members of the bar registered with the court's electronic filing service as well as to original counsel of record in the identified cases. Questions concerning the order or the process for responding should be directed by phone to the Federal Circuit Clerk's Office at [phone].

From the linked-to order:

The court is in the process of accessioning its remaining paper case records to the National Archives and Records Administration for permanent retention. These records pre-date the court's transition to its electronic case management filing system in 2012 and once transferred to the National Archives will remain in only paper format and will not be made available online. Pursuant to Federal Circuit Rule 25.1(a)(1), "[a]fter five years following the end of all proceedings in this court, the court may direct the parties to show cause why confidential filings (except those protected by statute) should not be unsealed and made available to the public." Through the review of these records, the court has identified several cases containing confidential filings that remain under seal more than five years following the end of all proceedings.

The list in the order appears to include over 1000 cases. Note that, though NARA will apparently only store the records in paper format for now, I expect that anything publicly accessible at NARA could potentially end up getting scanned and placed online in the future. Thanks to Michael F. Smith of the Smith Appellate Law Firm for the pointer.

Comments

[santamonica811]

A good thing.

Last year, I discovered (to my dismay) that the LA branch of California's state appellate division routinely destroys all the records from old cases. Found out when I wanted a few of my appellate briefs on a particular case, when that case suddenly resurrected itself after 25 years (as child abuse cases sometimes do, when a parent happens to have a new kid, much much later on, in their life). A real blow for me, to find out that, not only had I lost all those 200 hours of work when my computer crashed and the backup drive also failed, but the court system made a point of also destroying it own records.

Anything that results in "permanent" (to the extent that anything electronic is truly permanent) records is a positive step, IMO.

[santamonica811]

it = its [sigh]

[John F. Carr]

NARA should hire some interns to scan documents.

Routine record destruction policies should be obsolete now. All the text you have ever written could fit in your pocket. Outside of courts, record retention policies are used as an excuse to destroy embarrassing or incriminating information. Office email may have too many unreasonably large attachments to keep, but the official final work product should be kept forever.

[mydisplayname]

It's a good time to highlight current citizen archivist missions: https://www.archives.gov/citizen-archivist/missions

Anyone who has a free day-or-so and an interest in any anything in which the federal government is involved should explore the National Archives II (in Maryland). There are plenty of documents to explore... and every finding aid steering others to the important documents is welcome.

[Andrew Dhuey]

Given the Federal Circuit's limited appellate jurisdiction, my guess is that the sealed materials are most proprietary information in patent cases (tech trade secrets, licensing terms) and sensitive personal information in civil servant dismissal/discipline cases. Much of that is probably no longer sensitive information and should be unsealed.