Can't Get Case Sealed Just Because "People Ask Me About [It]"

The plaintiff says she "thought the whole time it was going to be confidential"—but court cases are public.

From yesterday's decision by Magistrate Judge Patricia Cohen (E.D. Mo.) in Contejean v. Ameren:

This matter is before the Court on self-represented Plaintiff's letter to the Court requesting that her "case be removed from the internet[,]" which the Court interprets as a motion to seal the "case." On July 22, 2024, Plaintiff filed a complaint bringing claims of race and age discrimination and retaliation under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967.

Plaintiff requests the Court to "remove all information regarding her case from "the internet" because "people ask me about this[.]" Plaintiff states she "thought the whole time it was going to be confidential." Plaintiff further states that "[i]f there is another process [she needs] to follow in order to have it removed please advise."

There is a common-law right of access to judicial records. Although not absolute, there is "a general right to inspect and copy public records and documents, including judicial records and documents[.]" While the Court has supervisory power over its own records and files, "only the most compelling reasons can justify non-disclosure of judicial records." Instead, "[s]ealing documents is generally appropriate when necessary to 'shield victim identities, protect trade secrets, secure matters of national security, honor the rules of sovereign nations, and conceal personal identifying information such as social security numbers or dates of birth.'"

Here, Plaintiff seeks to remove all references to her case from the "internet" based upon her desire for the case to remain "confidential." However, Plaintiff's desire for the case to remain "confidential" does not outweigh the Court's interest in preserving the common-law right of access to judicial records in civil proceedings. Accordingly, based on the record currently before the Court, the Court denies Plaintiff's motion to seal….

I've seen a few cases in which courts have granted such motions to seal, or to retroactively pseudonymize, presumably in order to protect a litigant's future employment prospects; I hope to write about one such cases shortly. But those decisions almost always lack any detailed legal analysis, and I think there's really no precedent supporting them; the Contejean decision accurately follows the legal rules.

Comments

[Stupid Government Tricks]

I've got a question for the legal beagles. Why are magistrate judges legal?

I finally decided to find out what a magistrate judge is, and here is Wikipedia:

Magistrate judges are appointed by a majority vote of the federal district judges of a particular district and serve terms of eight years if full-time, or four years if part-time, and may be reappointed.
...
The magistrate judge's seat is not a separate court; the authority that a magistrate judge exercises is the jurisdiction of the district court itself, delegated to the magistrate judge by the district judges of the court under governing statutory authority, local rules of court, or court orders. Rather than fixing the duties of magistrate judges nationwide, the Federal Magistrates Act allows each district court to assign duties to the magistrate judges as fits the needs of that court.
In criminal proceedings, magistrate judges preside over misdemeanor and petty offense cases, and as to all criminal cases (felony and misdemeanor) may issue search warrants, arrest warrants, and summonses, accept criminal complaints, conduct initial appearance proceedings and detention hearings, set bail or other conditions of release or detention, hold preliminary hearings and examinations, administer oaths, conduct extradition proceedings, and conduct evidentiary hearings on motions to suppress evidence in felony cases for issuance of reports and recommendations to the district judge.

Doesn't this mean they are not Article III judges, nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate? How can they have any authority to "preside over misdemeanor and petty offense cases"? I can understand signing warrants, setting bail, and so on, sort of, like clerks or bailiffs who act on behalf of the court. Is "preside over" some kind of short hand for merely ruling on motions but not actually deciding a case? Do the Article III judges countersign all magistrate judge orders to give that Article III imprimatur?

[Stupid Government Tricks]

(Trying to keep break this into shorter pieces)
The Wikipedia article goes on to discuss Article III some, but it still seems incomplete to me.

The Supreme Court has held in Peretz v. United States that magistrate judges may supervise the jury selection in a felony trial unless a party objects.

Because Article III of the United States Constitution vests the judicial powers in courts to which the judges are appointed for life (and which are therefore called Article III tribunals), decisions of a magistrate judge are subject to review and either approval, modification or reversal by a district judge of that court – except in civil cases where the parties consent in advance to allow the magistrate judge to exercise the jurisdiction of the district judge, and in which case appeals from the decision of the magistrate judge are heard by the United States courts of appeals. Magistrate judges therefore operate under the authority of United States Congress to appoint "inferior courts", set forth in Article I, making them Article I judges.
The Supreme Court most thoroughly delineated the permissible scope of Article I tribunals in Northern Pipeline Construction Co. v. Marathon Pipe Line Co., striking down the statute that created the original U.S. bankruptcy court. The Court held in that opinion that the framers of the Constitution had developed a scheme of separation of powers which clearly required that the judicial branch be kept independent of the other two branches via the mechanism of lifetime appointments. However, the Court also found that Congress has the power under Article I to create adjunct tribunals, so long as the "essential attributes of judicial power" stay in Article III courts. This power derives from two sources. First, when Congress creates rights, it can require those asserting such rights to go through an Article I tribunal. Second, Congress can create non-Article III tribunals to help Article III courts deal with their workload, but only if the Article I tribunals are under the control of the Article III courts. The magistrate judges fall within this category of "adjunct" tribunals. All actions heard in an Article I tribunal are subject to de novo review in the supervising Article III court, which retains the exclusive power to make and enforce final judgments.

This still seems like a lot of hand waving to me. Why doesn't Congress just hire more Article III judges?

[MatthewSlyfield]

"Why doesn’t Congress just hire more Article III judges?"

Because Congress acting on it's own doesn't have the power to do that.

Congress could create more seats for Article III judges, but they are at best half the process of filling those seats.

1. President nominates a candidate for to be an AIII judge.
2. The Senate (only half of Congress) considers the nomination and may vote to confirm the nominee.
3. Once Congress has confirmed the nominee, the President appoints the nominee as an AIII judge.

[Stupid Government Tricks]

Sorry for the delay!

Is it just too many Article III judges to nominate? (I knew the process, and "hire" was just shorthand.)

To me, one of the big failing of the US judicial system is how slow it is, and I wonder if it would actually speed up any by having more judges. Suppose there were ten times as many; it wouldn't be ten times as fast, but would it be even 10% faster?

There was some case which took 27 months just for a state court and federal court to decide whether a case was copyright or contract and which court would handle it. It's hard for me to fathom that, no matter how complicated it was. But the Mythical Man Month enlightened me as to how much projects can be sped up with extra hires, and ten women don't make pregnancy ten times faster.

[MatthewSlyfield]

"Is it just too many Article III judges to nominate?"

That is potentially a problem. The full process takes a significant amount of time.

But that's not the only problem.
If the Congress is controlled by a different party than the President, the President can simply not nominate anyone and Congress can't do much about it.

Or if the Senate doesn't like the President's nominee's they can reject all of them.

[Rossami]

re: "[i]f there is another process [she needs] to follow"

Sure. Don't file the lawsuit in the first place.

[TheAmazingEmu]

To be charitable to this person, she didn't ask the case to be sealed entirely (which the court construed the motion as). She just asked that it not be listed publicly on a website. I'm not saying that should be allowed (or that she should be allowed to undo her mistake once she made it), but her ask was at least smaller than the court made it out to be.

[ReaderY]

I think this case illustrates that it’s really advisable to consult an attorney, who can advise you on whether the various things you believed and expected about the law and the courts are true or not.

That way, you’ll not only know things like whether your case will likely be made public or not, you’ll have a better idea whether you actually have a winnable case in the first place and what’s involved in pursuing it.

The plaintiff here isn’t even aware that she has to file a motion to seal and make an argument for it, let alone what the contents and standard for such an argument need to be. She simply thought all lawsuits are confidential, was surprised to learn hers wasn’t, and is writing a letter to the judge complaining about it.

[David Nieporent]

On the one hand, I can understand in the abstract thinking that lawsuits are confidential. On the other, anyone who has read a newspaper or watched the news on television has seen plenty of coverage of lawsuits. Why would she think hers was confidential when all those other people's weren't?