Ocasio v. C.R. Bard, Inc., No. 8:13-cv-1962-CEH-AEP, 2021 WL 2477259 (M.D. Fla. June 17, 2021) was decided on June 17, 2021.
Three were 7 lawyers of record by my count. Four were from outside Florida. These 4 were obviously the lead counsel and the remaining lawyers apparently served as local counsel.
The decision in this case by Judge Honeywell was to deny unopposed motions of the plaintiffs and of the defendants to seal certain deposition transcripts. The parties jointly requested the Court to seal “53 deposition transcripts that the parties intend to play at trial.” Ocasio, 2021 WL 2477259, at *1.
The Court denied this unopposed joint request to seal testimony for several reasons.
First, the defendants represented to the Court that sealing the entire set of 53 deposition transcripts was the narrowest method they knew of keeping proprietary information confidential. Judge Honeywell’s answer was that “the Court finds this blanket statement to be unsupported and improbable.” Ocasio, 2021 WL 2477259, at *2.
Next, the parties proposed to read or play the depositions “in open court and thus the matter will not be kept confidential from any member of the general public attending the trial.” Ocasio, 2021 WL 2477259, at *2.
Third, the fact that the parties declared these transcripts to be confidential did not by itself make them confidential. Ocasio, 2021 WL 2477259, at *2.
In short, for all these reasons the parties did not jointly show “good cause” and they did not in their unopposed motions overcome the presumption of public access to these documents. Ocasio, 2021 WL 2477259, at *2. But none of these reasons was the main reason for decision here.
The most important reason for denying the parties’ joint unopposed motions to seal was that they apparently did not read Middle District of Florida Local Rule 1.11(a). Whether they read it or not, they obviously did not follow it. If they had, they might have succeeded. Local Rule 1.11(a), relied on by the Court as a basis for its Order, provides in full as follows:
Rule 1.11 - Filing Under Seal in a Civil Action
- PUBLIC RIGHT OF ACCESS. Because constitutional law and common law afford the public a qualified right of access to an item filed in connection with the adjudication of a claim or defense, sealing is unavailable absent a compelling justification. Sealing is not authorized by a confidentiality agreement, a protective order, a designation of confidentiality, or a stipulation.
M.D. Fla. Local Rule 1.11(a) (emphasis added).
The lesson for practitioners is pretty well summarized (if I do say so myself) in the title of my Letter to the Editor about the Ocasio v. C.R. Bard decision, published in the August 1, 2021 edition of The Florida Bar News: Read The Local Rules.
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