Opinion ID: 2590660
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Beyond Dreiling: Additional standards for the sealing and unsealing of court records

Text: ¶ 22 In light of the particular facts presented in this case, the parties and amici ask this court to establish several new standards for the sealing and unsealing of court records. We discuss each below.
¶ 23 Although in Dreiling we clearly held that the compelling interest standard applies when parties attempt to seal (or keep sealed) documents filed in conjunction with dispositive motions, Abbott and Amicus Product Liability Advisory Council, Inc. (PLAC) ask this court to limit that holding to instances where parties attach their own documents to dispositive motions. They argue that we should apply a good cause standard when one party attaches to any motion or pleading documents produced during discovery by another party which were subject to a protective order unless and until the moving party can demonstrate the relevancy of the attachments to the substance of their motion. But we have already explicitly held in Dreiling that a compelling interest (or overriding interest) standard controls when parties attempt to seal any portion of a dispositive motion. [11] 151 Wash.2d at 910, 93 P.3d 861. ¶ 24 The request to limit the standard articulated in Dreiling to instances where parties file motions supported with their own documents (rather than those produced by other parties) appears to stem from a concern that the judicial process may be abused. That is, parties may use the motions and pleadings process to embarrass or harass other parties by attaching confidential documents produced by other parties which may not be relevant to the underlying motion. PLAC argues it is unfair that those documents would be entitled to a strong presumption of openness by virtue of their attachment to a dispositive motion. ¶ 25 The disposition of this issue depends on whether we will presume that attorneys act in good faith or in bad faith. While we do not deny the possibility, it is overly cynical to presume that parties will act vindictively and abusively by attaching documents wholly irrelevant to their motions for the sole purpose of embarrassing or harming opposing parties. CR 26(h) requires a party filing discovery materials for use in a proceeding to file only those portions upon which the party relies. When parties do act in bad faith by abusing the discovery or pleading processes, there are specific sanctions that courts should impose. See CR 11, 26(g). We need not devise an entirely different standard to address the concerns raised with respect to this issue. ¶ 26 Additionally, the potential for abuse is also addressed through the application of the Ishikawa factors to a motion to seal. If a party attaches to a motion something that is both irrelevant to the motion and confidential to another party, the court should seal it. When there is indeed little or no relevant relationship between the document and the motion, the court, in balancing the competing interests of the parties and the public pursuant to the fourth Ishikawa factor, would find that there are little or no valid interests of the party attaching the document to its motion or of the public with respect to disclosure of the document. This is because the interest of the public that we are concerned with in making these determinations is the public's right to the open administration of justice. We have already held that article I, section 10 is not relevant to documents that do not become part of the court's decision making process. Dreiling, 151 Wash.2d at 909-10, 93 P.3d 861. Thus, if a record is truly irrelevant to the merits of the case and the motion before the court, the court would not consider the document in evaluating the motion before it, and in applying Ishikawa it would likely find that sealing is warranted. As long as the opposing party has a valid interest in keeping the information confidential, there is very little, if any, interest of the public or the moving party to balance against that asserted interest.
¶ 27 The Rufers and Amicus Washington State Trial Lawyers Association Foundation ask this court to extend Dreiling and its predecessors to require an overriding interest before a court will seal any records once they have been filed with the court  including those filed in furtherance of nondispositive motions, such as motions in limine. ¶ 28 Abbott and amici PLAC and Washington Defense Trial Lawyers, on the other hand, urge us to apply the Ninth Circuit's language in Foltz that documents filed in furtherance of nondispositive motions may be sealed merely upon a showing of good cause. See Foltz, 331 F.3d at 1135. They ask us to limit Dreiling to only those records which the court relied upon in making dispositive decisions. Thus, any records not considered by the court in making a dispositive decision would continue to be sealed for good cause. ¶ 29 The basis for this disagreement, and how we must resolve it, depends upon the extent of the public's right to the open administration of justice. If we define this right narrowly to consist only of the observation of events leading directly up to the court's final decision, then arguably any documents put before the court that were not a part of that final decision would be outside of the scope of article I, section 10. Put another way, if the jury does not see it, the public does not see it. But our prior case law does not so limit the public's right to the open administration of justice. As previously noted, the right is not concerned with merely whether our courts are generating legally-sound results. Rather, we have interpreted this constitutional mandate as a means by which the public's trust and confidence in our entire judicial system may be strengthened and maintained. Allied Daily Newspapers, 121 Wash.2d at 211, 848 P.2d 1258. To accomplish such an ideal, the public must  absent any overriding interest  be afforded the ability to witness the complete judicial proceeding, including all records the court has considered in making any ruling, whether dispositive or not. There is good reason to diverge from federal open courts jurisprudence where appropriate. While our state constitution has an explicit open courts provision, there is no such counterpart in the federal constitution, and much of the federal right is grounded in federal common law. See Foltz, 331 F.3d at 1134. ¶ 30 We hold that any records that were filed with the court in anticipation of a court decision (dispositive or not) should be sealed or continue to be sealed only when the court determines  pursuant to Ishikawa  that there is a compelling interest which overrides the public's right to the open administration of justice. We are merely articulating the standard a trial court should use when confronted with a motion to seal records. It is within the trial court's discretion to apply that standard and determine if the interests asserted by the party wishing to seal records are compelling enough to override the presumption of openness. We can posit several interests that may override the presumption of openness, but we hesitate to list them here because they are not found in the facts before us and this analysis must be done on a case-by-case basis. ¶ 31 As we hold in this case that all documents filed with the trial court are open absent compelling interests to the contrary, future litigants might take that to mean that they no longer need to file their pleadings and motions under seal when attaching documents that were previously subject to a pretrial confidentiality order. We stress that this is not the case. In this particular case, parties who filed motions with attachments that were subject to the pretrial confidentiality order filed the motions under seal and then later requested them to be opened. This procedure should continue to be used even after this decision. Parties should continue to comply with pretrial confidentiality orders by filing any documents falling within the pretrial confidentiality order's scope under seal. Upon the filing of records under seal, the parties will now know that the court, upon motion, will open such records unless the party wishing to keep them sealed demonstrates an overriding interest. Thus, filing merely triggers the analysis of whether records should be opened; it does not automatically open previously sealed records. Parties opposing the potential opening would then be required to make the requisite showing of a compelling or overriding interest for closure.