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Nature of Suit Code: 890
Nature of Suit: Other Statutory Actions
Cause of Action: 

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UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT 

_________________________________ 

BRAVE LAW FIRM, LLC, 

 Plaintiff - Appellant, 

v. 

TRUCK ACCIDENT LAWYERS 

GROUP, INC.; BRAD PISTOTNIK LAW 

FIRM, P.A.; BRADLEY A. PISTOTNIK, 

 Defendants - Appellees. 

No. 24-3028 

(D.C. No. 6:17-CV-01156-EFM) 

(D. Kan.) 

_________________________________ 

ORDER AND JUDGMENT*

_________________________________ 

Before HARTZ, BALDOCK, and ROSSMAN, Circuit Judges. 

_________________________________ 

Plaintiff-Appellant Brave Law Firm, LLC (“Brave”) appeals the district 

court’s denial of a motion to unseal certain litigation documents. We have 

jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and we affirm. 

* After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined 

unanimously to honor the parties’ request for a decision on the briefs without oral 

argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(f); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is therefore 

submitted without oral argument. This order and judgment is not binding precedent, 

except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. It 

may be cited, however, for its persuasive value consistent with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 

and 10th Cir. R. 32.1. 

FILED 

United States Court of Appeals 

Tenth Circuit 

December 5, 2024

Christopher M. Wolpert 

Clerk of Court

Appellate Case: 24-3028 Document: 53-1 Date Filed: 12/05/2024 Page: 1
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BACKGROUND 

In 2017, Brave sued the defendants (collectively, “Pistotnik”) alleging 

violations of the Lanham Act and Kansas law in connection with certain 

advertisements for legal services.1

 But Brave agreed to dismiss the lawsuit if 

Pistotnik produced proof that a large settlement touted in some of its advertisements 

(the “state-court settlement”) actually occurred. Pistotnik produced proof the district 

court deemed sufficient, so it dismissed the case. Brave appealed, and we affirmed. 

See Brave L. Firm, LLC [“Brave”] v. Truck Accident Laws. Grp, 843 F. App’x 134, 

137-38 (10th Cir. 2021). 

During discovery, Brave obtained information related to the state-court 

settlement including the confidential settlement agreement. Using that information, 

Brave obtained additional information about the underlying litigation and indicated 

an intent to publish it. Pistotnik then moved for a protective order under 

Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(c). The district court entered a protective order “requiring Brave 

to maintain the confidentiality of the former clients’ identities and precluding [Brave] 

from publicly connecting the court records . . . obtained to the Settlement.” 

Brave, 843 F. App’x at 136. Brave filed an unredacted copy of the settlement 

agreement, but that copy remained under seal. Brave appealed that protective order, 

1

 This is one of many proceedings Brave has brought against Pistotnik in state 

and federal court. See Aplt. App. vol. 2 at 471–73 (detailing other actions between 

Brave and Pistotnik). Brave and Pistotnik operate competing personal-injury law 

firms in Kansas. At one time Brave and Pistotnik worked together as part of the 

same law firm. 

Appellate Case: 24-3028 Document: 53-1 Date Filed: 12/05/2024 Page: 2
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but this court affirmed it along with the order dismissing the claims. 

See id. at 137–38. 

Two years later, Pistotnik moved to reopen the case “for the limited purpose of 

enforcing and ensuring compliance with” the protective orders. Aplt. App. 

vol. 2 at 454. In that motion, Pistotnik stated that the name of an individual involved 

in the earlier-litigated settlement was “inadvertently not redacted from the version of 

the transcript filed as of record in the present case.” Id. at 455. Pistotnik had 

redacted the names in portions of the transcript but, inadvertently, left the names 

unredacted in two additional locations. Pistotnik requested leave to (1) substitute a 

properly redacted transcript and (2) file a motion to hold Brave in contempt for 

violating the court’s protective order. 

The district court granted the motion to reopen. Pistotnik then filed several 

motions: a motion to substitute the transcript with a correctly redacted one, a 

contempt motion, and a motion to file under seal certain documents attached to the 

contempt motion. Brave objected and, separately, filed a “Motion to Unseal 

Doc. 99-1.” Aplt. App. vol. 5 at 1305. “Doc. 99-1” referred to the state-court 

settlement agreement. The district court granted Pistotnik’s motion to substitute the 

transcript and motion to file certain documents under seal. But the court denied 

Pistotnik’s motion to hold Brave in contempt and Brave’s request to unseal the 

state-court settlement agreement. 

This appeal followed. Brave challenges the denial of the motion to unseal. 

Pistotnik does not cross-appeal the denial of the contempt motion. 

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DISCUSSION 

“[T]he court has authority to alter the terms of a protective order it has entered, 

and ordinarily requests to modify are directed to the district court’s discretion and 

subject to review only for abuse of discretion.” S.E.C. v. Merrill Scott & Assocs., 

Ltd., 600 F.3d 1262, 1271 (10th Cir. 2010) (internal quotation marks, brackets, and 

ellipsis omitted). When reviewing for abuse of discretion in this context, “we will 

not disturb a trial court’s decision absent a definite and firm conviction that the lower 

court made a clear error of judgment or exceeded the bounds of permissible choice in 

the circumstances.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). 

Brave asks us to reverse the denial of the motion to unseal. But his arguments 

on appeal consist mostly of attempts to relitigate what was raised and decided against 

him in the prior appeal. See Brave, 843 F. App’x at 138. Reprised here, these 

arguments fail for largely the same reasons. “[The] common-law right of access to 

judicial records . . . is not absolute.” See Mann v. Boatright, 477 F.3d 1140, 1149 

(10th Cir. 2007) (internal citations omitted)). The district court’s order permits public 

access to the terms of the state-court settlement, minus the names of the private 

individuals who are non-parties to this suit. This order struck an appropriate 

balance—limiting the potential for “harassment from other members of the public 

due to the large amount of money [the state-court clients] received,” Aplt. App. vol. 4 

at 1330, while permitting the public to examine and review the court’s decision. And 

this balance fell well within “the bounds of permissible choice in the circumstances.” 

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Merrill Scott & Assocs., 600 F.3d at 1271. We thus discern no abuse of discretion in 

the district court’s ruling. 

Brave insists the district court erred by keeping the identity of the parties in 

the state-court settlement sealed because that information is otherwise publicly 

available. In connection with this argument, he asserts the district court failed to 

apply the proper legal standards in ruling the settlement agreement should remain 

sealed. We disagree. “In this situation, in which Brave obtained possession of 

otherwise public information only through leveraging its access to materials the 

magistrate judge declared protected, we cannot conclude that the district court abused 

its discretion in upholding the magistrate judge’s orders.” Brave, 843 F. App’x 

at 138. Likewise, we are not left with a definite and firm conviction that the district 

court erred when it declined to fully unseal one document (the state-court settlement 

agreement) simply because Pistotnik mistakenly failed to fully redact a different 

document (the transcript) when first permitted to file it. 

CONCLUSION 

We affirm the judgment of the district court. We grant Pistotnik’s request to seal 

these portions of the record: Doc. 99-1 (Aplt. App. vol. 6 at 1341–57), and Doc. 99-6 

(Id. at 1358–62). We otherwise grant Brave’s request to unseal the remaining portions of 

the appellate record in this case. 

Entered for the Court 

Veronica S. Rossman 

Circuit Judge 

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