RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION

Pursuant to Sixth Circuit I.O.P. 32.1(b)

File Name: 18a0144p.06

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

JOHN B. WOODS, M.D.; TOM MCDONALD, M.D.,

Petitioners,

v.

UNITED STATES DRUG ENFORCEMENT 

ADMINISTRATION; JEFFERSON B. SESSIONS, III,

Attorney General; UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF 

JUSTICE; ROBERT W. PATTERSON, Acting 

Administrator of the Drug Enforcement 

Administration,

Respondents.

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No. 17-6264

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Western District of Tennessee at Jackson.

No. 1:16-cv-01289—S. Thomas Anderson, District Judge.

Decided and Filed: July 18, 2018

Before: BATCHELDER, KETHLEDGE, and WHITE, Circuit Judges.

_________________

COUNSEL

ON PETITIONERS’ BRIEF, MOTION TO DISMISS, AND RESPONSE IN 

OPPOSITION TO RESPONDENTS’ MOTION TO SEAL: Dale Conder, Jr., RAINEY, 

KIZER, REVIERE & BELL, PLC, Jackson, Tennessee, for Petitioners. ON RESPONDENTS’ 

BRIEF, MOTION TO SEAL, AND REPLY TO PETITIONERS’ RESPONSE IN 

OPPOSITION: James M. Waldrop, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY’S OFFICE, Memphis, 

Tennessee, for Respondents.

>
No. 17-6264 Woods v. DEA Page 2

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ORDER

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KETHLEDGE, Circuit Judge. The parties have settled this case. The petitioners now 

move to dismiss their petition for review, and the government moves to seal the settlement 

agreement. We grant the petitioners’ motion and deny the government’s.

The petitioners, Tom McDonald and John Woods, are doctors who handle and prescribe 

controlled substances, i.e., painkillers. The DEA bars hospitals from hiring, as an employee with 

“access to controlled substances,” any doctor who “for cause” has surrendered his registration to 

handle those substances. 21 C.F.R. § 1301.76(a). In 2016, the DEA enforced this regulation 

against McDonald and Woods, who had voluntarily surrendered their registrations while in 

addiction treatment, but who have regained full registrations with the DEA since. Thus, they 

could not work for their hospital until it obtained waivers for them from the DEA.

McDonald and Woods thereafter sued to enjoin the DEA from enforcing the regulation 

against them in the future, arguing that it no longer applied to them once their DEA registrations 

were restored. The government eventually agreed with them and the parties settled the case. 

The settlement agreement provides, among other things, that “[t]he DEA no longer interprets 

21 C.F.R. § 1301.76(a) as requiring . . . potential employers of doctors with unrestricted DEA 

registrations to seek waivers.”

McDonald and Woods attached a copy of this agreement to their motion to dismiss the 

petition for review. The government in turn moved to keep the agreement under seal. We apply 

“a strong presumption in favor of openness as to court records.” Shane Grp., Inc. v. Blue Cross 

Blue Shield of Mich., 825 F.3d 299, 305 (6th Cir. 2016) (internal quotation marks omitted). The 

party seeking to seal a record document therefore must “analyze in detail” why the information 

in that document should stay secret. Id.

The government does not even attempt to do that here. Rather than identify information 

too sensitive to remain public, the government argues that the agreement does not need to remain 

so—specifically because it binds only the parties and no rule required the parties to file it. That 
No. 17-6264 Woods v. DEA Page 3

argument gets exactly backwards our operative presumption, which is that “[t]he public has a 

strong interest in obtaining the information contained in the court record.” Id. That interest is 

particularly strong where the information pertains to an agency’s interpretation of a regulation. 

Other doctors would no doubt be interested to know that the DEA does not plan to treat them like 

it treated McDonald and Woods.

The government also suggests—in a reply—that the parties agreed not to file the 

settlement agreement. That purported agreement appears nowhere in the settlement itself. And 

at any rate the settlement is already part of the public record; any agreement would not overcome 

the public’s strong interest in access to court records, especially when they concern how the 

government enforces its regulations. Cf. id. at 306 (requiring specific reasons to seal a document 

“even if neither party objects to the motion to seal”).

To its credit, the government acknowledges the “vital public interest in open judicial 

proceedings.” 28 C.F.R. § 50.9. Its current motion does not. The petitioners’ motion to dismiss 

is granted, and the government’s motion to seal is denied.