(Photo © Dennis J. Wall)
Of all Federal Courts, one of the ones you might least expect to uphold the presumption of public access to court records is the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Yet that is exactly what they have done.
In what the Court itself described as a "run-of-the-mill case," a unanimous panel chose to identify the differences among a protective order, a stipulated protective order, and sealing evidence. The entire opinion is worth reading.
Here is the reason for decision:
Judicial records belong to the American people; they are public, not private, documents. Certainly, some cases involve sensitive information that, if disclosed, could endanger lives or threaten national security. But increasingly, courts are sealing documents in run-of-the-mill cases where the parties simply prefer to keep things under wraps.
This is such a case. The secrecy is consensual, and neither party frets that 73 percent of the record is sealed. But we do, for three reasons. First, courts are duty-bound to protect public access to judicial proceedings and records. Second, that duty is easy to overlook in stipulated sealings like this one, where the parties agree, the busy district court accommodates, and nobody is left in the courtroom to question whether the decision satisfied the substantive requirements. Third, this case is not unique, but consistent with the growing practice of parties agreeing to private discovery and presuming that whatever satisfies the lenient protective-order standard will necessarily satisfy the stringent sealing-order standard.
Hoa Le v. Exeter Fin. Corp., ___ F.3d ___, No. 20-10377, 2021 WL 838266, at *5 (5th Cir. March 5, 2021).
After losing its head in this rousing tribute to public access, the Fifth Circuit panel returned to its normal and affirmed a summary judgment for the defendant.
Please read the disclaimer. ©2021 Dennis J. Wall. All rights reserved.
Comments