Title: Carey v. Maine Board of Overseers of the Bar

State: maine

Issuer: Maine Supreme Court

Document:

MAINE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT 
Reporter of Decisions 
Decision: 
2018 ME 73 
Docket: 
Ken-17-419 
Argued: 
February 14, 2018 
Decided: 
June 5, 2018 
 
Panel: 
SAUFLEY, C.J., and ALEXANDER, HJELM, and HUMPHREY, JJ. 
 
 
SETH T. CAREY 
 
v. 
 
MAINE BOARD OF OVERSEERS OF THE BAR et al. 
 
 
PER CURIAM 
[¶1]  Judge Maria Woodman and Judge Nancy Carlson (collectively, the 
judges) appeal from an order of the Superior Court (Kennebec County, 
Anderson, J.) denying their motion to seal or strike portions of Seth T. Carey’s 
response to their motion to dismiss his complaint.  We dismiss the appeal 
because it is interlocutory and does not fall within any exception to the final 
judgment rule.  
I.  BACKGROUND 
[¶2]  The following facts are drawn from the procedural history.  See 
Schulz v. Doeppe, 2018 ME 49, ¶ 3, --- A.3d ---.  Carey is a lawyer and is the 
respondent in an attorney discipline proceeding.  In November of 2016, 
pursuant to the agreement of Bar Counsel and Carey himself, a single justice 
 
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found that Carey had violated provisions of the Maine Rules of Professional 
Conduct and suspended Carey from practicing law in Maine for two years but 
suspended the suspension subject to Carey’s compliance with numerous 
conditions.  Bd. of Overseers of the Bar v. Carey, BAR-16-15 (Nov. 21, 2016) 
(Brennan, J.).  Although Carey agreed to that disciplinary order, in early 2017 
he filed a lengthy, multicount complaint, which he later amended, against 
numerous entities and individuals—including the judges—based on their 
actions and involvement in the disciplinary proceeding.   
[¶3]  In February of 2017, all of the defendants, in two groups, filed 
separate motions to dismiss Carey’s amended complaint and sought imposition 
of sanctions.  Carey filed a single response to the motions on March 6, 2017.  
Three days later, on March 9, the judges filed a motion to seal or, pursuant to 
Maine Rule of Civil Procedure 12(f), strike certain paragraphs of Carey’s 
response in which he made assertions about the judges and a family member of 
one of them.  In their motion, the judges stated that the assertions were both 
personal and extrinsic to Carey’s complaint and therefore could not be properly 
considered in connection with the motion to dismiss the complaint.   
[¶4]  In an order issued on September 1, 2017, the court denied the 
judges’ motion to seal or strike.  The court concluded that the material could 
 
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not be stricken pursuant to Rule 12(f) because that Rule applies only to a 
“pleading,” which does not encompass an opposition to a motion to dismiss a 
complaint, and because the judges “provided no authority” for sealing the 
paragraphs.  The September 1 order did not dispose of the motions to dismiss 
the complaint, and so the case remained pending in the trial court.   
[¶5]  On September 21—twenty days after the court issued its order—
the judges filed a notice of appeal from the court’s denial of their motion to seal 
or strike.  See M.R. App. P. 2A, 2B(c).  Because the case was still pending in the 
trial court, we issued an order on October 12 requiring the judges to show cause 
why the appeal should not be dismissed as interlocutory.  On October 16, in 
response to the show cause order, the judges filed a memorandum, to which 
they attached a copy of Carey’s response to the motion to dismiss filed in the 
trial court, which included the material at issue here, in order to provide 
context for their contention that the appeal should not be dismissed.  The 
judges also moved to seal the pertinent portion of Carey’s filing that they had 
attached to their memorandum.  One week later, on October 23, we issued an 
order permitting the appeal to proceed because it arguably fell within an 
exception to the final judgment rule but reserved to the parties the opportunity 
 
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to argue the final judgment issue along with the merits.  In that order, we also 
ordered that the attachment be impounded pending further order of the Court.1   
II.  DISCUSSION 
 
[¶6]  Before it would be proper for us to address the merits of this 
interlocutory appeal, we must first address whether it falls within an exception 
to the final judgment rule.   
 
[¶7]  A court order that does not result in a final judgment is 
interlocutory, and any appeal of such an order is ordinarily barred by the final 
judgment rule.  Fiber Materials, Inc. v. Subilia, 2009 ME 71, ¶ 12, 974 A.2d 918; 
Estate of Kingsbury, 2008 ME 79, ¶ 4, 946 A.2d 389.  There are several 
exceptions to the final judgment rule that would allow interlocutory appellate 
review.  Davis v. Anderson, 2008 ME 125, ¶ 9, 953 A.2d 1166.  One is the death 
knell exception, which allows an appeal from an interlocutory order “when 
substantial rights of a party will be irreparably lost if review is delayed until 
                                         
1  Although we impounded the challenged material contained in Carey’s trial court filing, on 
December 12, 2017, Carey filed a motion to strike the appendix filed by the judges because it did not 
contain that material or, alternatively, for leave to file a supplemental appendix that would include 
that material.  The judges promptly filed an opposition.  Then, on December 19, Carey proceeded to 
file a brief specifically describing the impounded material, and two days later, the judges filed a 
motion to seal that portion of Carey’s brief.  On January 5, 2018, we denied Carey’s motion to strike 
the appendix or for leave to file a supplemental appendix, impounded Carey’s brief, and ordered the 
judges themselves to file a revised copy of Carey’s brief, with the impounded information redacted, 
that would constitute the “public copy.”  The judges filed the redacted appellee brief six days later.   
 
5 
final judgment.”  Kingsbury, 2008 ME 79, ¶ 5, 946 A.2d 389 (quotation marks 
omitted).  In other words, appellate intervention is warranted even when the 
case has not proceeded to a final judgment if, in the absence of that review, 
there would be “a substantial loss or sacrifice of the rights, property, or claim 
at issue.”  Id.  (quotation marks omitted).   
[¶8]  One situation where the death knell exception may apply is in an 
appeal from an order denying a motion to impound information.  “If such a 
party is denied the opportunity to have the matter reviewed on appeal prior to 
trial, the information will be disclosed and its secrecy forever lost.”  Fiber 
Materials, 2009 ME 71, ¶ 16, 974 A.2d 918.  In order to determine what rights 
would be lost if we were to dismiss this appeal, we must consider the extent to 
which the material at issue has already been available to the public.  
 
[¶9]  Carey filed his opposition to the judges’ motion to dismiss his 
complaint on March 6, 2017, and the judges filed their motion to strike or seal 
the challenged portions of Carey’s submission three days later, on March 9.  By 
operation of an administrative order issued by the Maine Supreme Judicial 
Court, upon the filing of the judges’ motion, the material they sought to strike 
or seal became unavailable for public inspection.  Public Information and 
Confidentiality, Me. Admin. Order JB-05-20 (as amended by A. 1-15) (effective 
 
6 
Jan. 14, 2015) (stating that “materials that are subject to a pending motion or 
other request for impoundment or sealing” are not available for public 
inspection); see also M.R. Civ. P. 79(b)(1) (“Upon the filing of a motion or other 
request to impound or seal documents or other materials, the clerk shall 
separate such materials from the publicly available file and keep them 
impounded or sealed pending the court’s adjudication of the motion.”).   
[¶10]  The material remained impounded pursuant to the Administrative 
Order until the court denied the judges’ motion on September 1 because, when 
the court acted on the motion, the motion was no longer pending and the 
protections afforded by the Administrative Order were extinguished.  The 
judges did not request that the court delay the effective date of the order it 
issued on September 1, and they did not take any other steps that would have 
extended the impoundment, even temporarily.  In other words, as the judges 
acknowledged at oral argument, the public had access to the material at issue 
when the court denied their motion.  Therefore, from September 1 until at least 
September 21, when the judges filed a notice of appeal, the challenged material 
was fully available for public inspection with no attempt by the judges to 
impound the material during that period.  And beyond that, if this appeal does 
not rise to the level of a “request for impoundment or sealing” within the 
 
7 
meaning of the Administrative Order—an issue we need not decide—then the 
material remained available for public inspection until October 16, when the 
judges specifically moved for us to impound the material.   
[¶11]  As a general matter and as a function of both common and 
constitutional law, “the courts of this country recognize a general right to 
inspect and copy public records and documents, including judicial records and 
documents.”  Nixon v. Warner Commc’ns, Inc., 435 U.S. 589, 597-98 (1978) 
(footnote omitted).  The general availability of court documents to the public, 
however, is subject to “countervailing interests [that] heavily outweigh the 
public interests in access.”  Rushford v. New Yorker Magazine, Inc., 846 F.2d 249, 
253 (4th Cir. 1988).  The court records at issue here are not declared 
confidential by statute or court rule, do not fall within recognized restrictions 
created by federal law, and are not otherwise declared nonpublic.   
[¶12]  Because public confidence in the judicial process is vitally 
important, our review of requests to seal documents must be undertaken very 
carefully and must be guided by the crucial principle of public access.  This 
means that, in the circumstances of this case, we place great significance on the 
access that the public had, for at least nearly three weeks, to the material that 
 
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the judges seek to impound here.2  The full availability that the public had to 
that material for a significant period materially diminishes the justification for 
sealing the material now.  We have reached the same conclusion in the past, 
although in a case where the dissemination of the challenged material may well 
have been greater than here.  See Fiber Materials, 2009 ME 71, ¶¶ 15-16, 24, 
974 A.2d 918 (concluding that the death knell exception did not apply because 
materials the appellant sought to strike had “already been widely disclosed” 
and were a “matter of public record for seven days until the memo was sealed 
by the court”); see also Gambale v. Deutsche Bank AG, 377 F.3d 133, 144 (2d Cir. 
2004) (stating that, although the confidential information became publicly 
available as a result of the trial court’s own error, “[w]e simply do not have the 
power, even if we were of the mind to use it if we had, to make what has thus 
become public private again. . . .  We have not the means to put the genie back 
[in the bottle]”); Level 3 Commc’ns, LLC v. Limelight Networks, Inc., 611 F. 
Supp. 2d 572, 584-85 (E.D.Va. 2009) (where a motion to impound was filed 
after the records at issue had been admitted in evidence at a trial and three 
                                         
2  We do not hold against the judges the several days that elapsed between Carey’s initial filing in 
the trial court and the motion to strike or seal because the judges acted with considerable dispatch 
in responding to Carey’s submission by moving to seal or strike it, which resulted in the material 
being impounded while the motion remained pending.  The public’s access to the documents after 
the court denied the impoundment motion is another matter. 
 
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weeks after the jury’s verdict, concluding that the party had waived the right to 
seek any such relief). 
 
[¶13]  The death knell exception to the final judgment rule serves to 
preserve and protect rights from being irreparably lost.  See Kingsbury, 
2008 ME 79, ¶ 5, 946 A.2d 389.  Because the material was unprotected and fully 
available to the public for a number of weeks, and the judges were aware of that 
circumstance but failed to take available and timely steps to protect against the 
harm they seek to avoid now, they have not demonstrated the irreparable harm 
necessary for appellate review of the court’s interlocutory order, and we do not 
reach the merits of the appeal.   
The entry is: 
Appeal dismissed.  The orders of impoundment 
dated October 23, 2017, and January 5, 2018, are 
vacated effective fourteen days after the date of 
this Opinion.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Janet T. Mills, Attorney General, and Susan P. Herman, Dep. Atty. Gen. (orally), 
Office of the Attorney General, Augusta, for appellants Judge Maria Woodman 
and Judge Nancy Carlson 
 
Seth T. Carey (orally), appellee pro se 
 
 
Kennebec County Superior Court docket number CV-2017-17 
FOR CLERK REFERENCE ONLY