INVESTING IN SECRECY.

In Wallace v. Ameripro EMS, LLC, No. 3:23-cv-1249-MMH-JBT, 2023 WL 7282888 (M.D. Fla. Nov. 3, 2023), the defendant filed an "Unopposed Motion to Seal Response to Jurisdictional Order and for Confidentiality".  The motion was unopposed, as everyone can see from the title.

The Court denied this motion anyway.  The defendant lost an unopposed motion to seal.  Here is the background behind this motion.

Although the Court's opinion does not reflect the nature of the action, PACER reveals that this is a civil suit for alleged breach of contract and an accounting over an allegedly agreed purchase of an ambulance service's assets.   In what appears to be an ordinary order, the Court ordered the defendant to disclose certain limited information about its investors in order to establish the jurisdiction of the Court to hear this case:  "As relevant here, the Court explained that to establish its citizenship, AmeriPro must disclose both the identity and the citizenship of its members."  Wallace, 2023 WL 7282888, at *1.

Rather than simply identify its members and reveal their citizenship publicly, the Defendant filed a motion to seal that information and keep it out of the public eye.

The defendant said itself that it filed its very unusual motion in an effort to forever seal the identity of its shy investors who did not want to have their financial interests revealed publicly.  Wallace, 2023 WL 7282888, at *1.

This is the Court's summary of why it denied these shy investors' unopposed motion:

In the Motion, AmeriPro asserts that a seal is warranted because revealing the names of these silent members in the public record “would violate their right to privacy of their investments.” Id. Notably, AmeriPro does not cite any legal authority for this proposition.

    Upon due consideration, the Court finds that this interest alone does not constitute a compelling justification sufficient to overcome the public's right of access.

 

Wallace, 2023 WL 7282888, at *1.

 

It is interesting that at one point, the District Judge in this case was almost solicitous toward the Defendant.  See Wallace, 2023 WL 7282888, at *1 n.2.  The Court suggested that perhaps the defendant and its attorneys misunderstood the Court's order on jurisdiction.  In my over 45 years of practicing law, including in the Middle District of Florida, Jacksonville Division, where this case is pending, I do not recall an occasion when a federal judge was solicitous about parties or lawyers misunderstanding her or his rulings.  That's what motions for rehearing are for, in my experience.  I do vividly recall that federal judges uniformly expected us to obey their orders whether or not we liked them.

 

Investing in secrecy as a reasonable expectation for financial transactions?  Not today, not even in Florida.

 

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