Opinion ID: 1931550
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Use of Pseudonyms

Text: We also disagree with the motion justice's decision to allow plaintiff to proceed under a pseudonym and to redact plaintiff's real name from all documents filed in this case after the commencement of the action. Regardless of whether one or both parties may have been entitled to proceed under a pseudonym ab initio, plaintiff should not have been allowed to unring the bell that he had been tolling for approximately nine months after he began this lawsuit in his own name. On the contrary, by intentionally filing this lawsuit in his own name, and thereafter, over the course of the next nine months  while litigating defendants' counterclaims to judgment  by publishing various additional legal documents in the Superior Court and in this Court that identified both parties by name and that characterized both of them as former non-married paramours, plaintiff himself exposed to the public  under his real name  the very information he now alleges to be of an intensely private nature. Under these circumstances, wehold, plaintiff waived any right to have the record belatedly altered and to litigate this case under a pseudonym. [5] As other courts have observed, the customary and constitutionally-embedded presumption of openness in judicial proceedings requires that litigants proceed under their own names unless an exceptional circumstance requiring anonymity exists. Doe v. Stegall, 653 F.2d 180, 186 (5th Cir.1981); see also Doe v. Frank, 951 F.2d 320 (11th Cir.1992); Doe v. University of Rhode Island, 28 Fed.R.Serv.3d 366 (D.R.I.1993). For parties to litigate a case under a pseudonym, they must show that they possess a substantial privacy interest that outweighs the public's interest in disclosure. Doe v. Prudential Insurance Co. of America, 744 F. Supp. 40, 41 (D.R.I.1990). In addition, `[t]here must be a strong social interest in concealing the identity of the plaintiff.' University of Rhode Island, 28 Fed.R.Serv.3d at 369. Risk of embarrassment or allegations of economic harm are insufficient. Id. Rather, the moving party must demonstrate that publishing his or her identity in connection with the lawsuit will result in social stigmatization, put him or her in danger of physical harm, or cause the very harm that the litigation seeks to prevent. Id. It is true that various courts have allowed plaintiffs to file suit under a pseudonym when they otherwise would be forced to disclose publicly their previously undisclosed status as homosexuals in the course of the litigation. See, e.g., Doe v. Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island, 794 F.Supp. 72, 75 (D.R.I.1992); Doe v. Commonwealth's Attorney for City of Richmond, 403 F.Supp. 1199 (E.D.Va.1975), aff'd, 425 U.S. 901, 96 S.Ct. 1489, 47 L.Ed.2d 751, reh'g denied, 425 U.S. 985, 96 S.Ct. 2192, 48 L.Ed.2d 810 (1976); Doe v. Chafee, 355 F. Supp. 112 (N.D.Cal.1973); Doe v. United Services Life Insurance Co., 123 F.R.D. 437 (S.D.N.Y.1988). In each of these cases, however, the plaintiffs filed their original complaint anonymously and then sought the court's permission to remain so throughout the litigation via the use of a pseudonym. Here, however, plaintiff, now John Doe, originally filed suit against Burkland using his real name. Thereafter, for almost nine months he proceeded openly to litigate this case to judgment under his legal identity before filing his initial motion on appeal to use a pseudonym and to seal the public pleadings and other documents that he previously had filed. Given these circumstances, plaintiff already has taken deliberate steps to expose the public to the very subject matter that he now seeks to cloak with anonymity  his former homosexual relationship with defendant. Thus, we have no need to conduct the type of analysis in this case that should occur whenever a party  typically at the outset of a case  has filed a timely motion for leave to litigate under a pseudonym. [6] At that time, the general approach to such requests should be as follows: the court should employ a balancing test that weighs the rights and interests of each litigating party and the interests of the public. The courts should not permit pseudonymous litigation on demand nor categorically disallow it. Very early in the litigation the public will have relatively little interest in the litigants' names.    By contrast, as the proceedings progress and the court decides issues presented by the parties, the values served by public scrutiny of the judicial process attach to an ever greater degree. Access to the identity of the litigants is an ingredient of that public scrutiny. Though not as critical as access to the proceedings, knowing the litigants' identities nevertheless tends to sharpen public scrutiny of the judicial process, to increase confidence in the administration of the law, to enhance the therapeutic value of judicial proceedings, and to serve the structural function of the first amendment by enabling informed discussion of judicial operations. In light of these salutary effects, the balancing test should become more onerous to the party granted pseudonymity and seeking to maintain it, from the time that the court renders any subsequent ruling or enters any subsequent orders requested by any of the parties. Joan Steinman, Public Trial, Pseudonymous Parties: When Should Litigants Be Permitted to Keep Their Identities Confidential?, 37 Hastings L.J. 1, 36 (1985). Here, the plaintiff started this lawsuit against Burkland using his own name. He then filed pleadings and legal memoranda over his own name that characterized Burkland's counterclaims as palimony and that referred to himself and Burkland as nonmarried paramours  characterizations that sat openly as a part of the public record in this case for an extended period before the plaintiff sought to shove them back into the closet through the retroactive use of a pseudonym. Although we are sympathetic to the sensitive subject matters at issue in this case, we cannot allow the plaintiff to remove from public scrutiny what he already has spread  repeatedly and intentionally  all over the public record. Because the plaintiff freely and intentionally disclosed his identity in connection with this case, and did so for an extended period in public filings and arguments, he failed to preserve what initially may have constituted a substantial interest in maintaining his privacy concerning these issues. On the contrary, we hold that the plaintiff's course of conduct in this case constituted a waiver of his right to retain and/or preserve his anonymity during these proceedings via the use of a pseudonym.