Opinion ID: 512575
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: a right of public access to discovery?

Text: 58 In assessing the claimed right of access in this case, it is helpful to begin by noting what is not being claimed. Unlike many prior litigants in this court and others, 13 Public Citizen has not claimed that it has--independent of the federal rules--a general common law or first amendment right to inspect the discovery materials. Such a claim has been largely foreclosed by the Supreme Court's decision in Seattle Times Co. v. Rhinehart, 467 U.S. 20, 104 S.Ct. 2199, 81 L.Ed.2d 17 (1984), which must serve as the background for any claimed right of access to discovery materials. 59 In Seattle Times, members of a religious group sued the Seattle Times in state court for defamation and invasion of privacy. As part of its defense of that case, the Seattle Times sought to discover information regarding membership in and donations to the religious group during the previous five years. When the group resisted, the trial court compelled production, but entered a protective order under the state analog of Federal Rule 26(c) prohibiting the Seattle Times from disseminating or using the information in any way except as necessary to prepare and try its case. The Seattle Times then challenged the protective order as a prior restraint on speech in violation of the first amendment. 60 The Supreme Court rejected the Seattle Times's claim and also rejected the suggestion that review of a protective order requires any heightened scrutiny under the first amendment. Although acknowledging that litigants do have limited first amendment rights concerning information obtained through discovery, the Court focused on the fact that discovery is a matter of legislative grace and that litigants gain access to discovery materials only by virtue of the trial court's discovery processes. Id. at 31-32, 104 S.Ct. at 2207. Moreover, the Court said, protective orders furthe[r] a substantial government interest unrelated to the suppression of expression. Id. at 34, 104 S.Ct. at 2208. Thus, where a protective order is entered on a showing of good cause as required by Rule 26(c), is limited to the context of pretrial discovery, and does not restrict the dissemination of the information if gained from other sources, it does not offend the first amendment. Id. at 37, 104 S.Ct. at 2209-10. 61 As we said in Anderson v. Cryovac, Inc., 805 F.2d 1, 6-7 (1st Cir.1986), the Seattle Times decision has not completely eliminated the first amendment as a relevant consideration in reviewing protective orders. Seattle Times has, however, established that first amendment scrutiny of protective orders must be made within the framework of Rule 26(c)'s requirement of good cause. Anderson, 805 F.2d at 7. 62 It is, therefore, very significant that Public Citizen has not asserted a common law or first amendment right of access independent of the federal rules. Rather, Public Citizen has based its claim on the federal rules, asserting that, under Rules 5(d) and 26(c), the public has a presumptive right of access to discovery materials unless good cause for confidentiality is shown, and that no good cause exists here. Nothing in Seattle Times or Anderson precludes such a claim. Discovery is a matter of legislative grace, 467 U.S. at 32, 104 S.Ct. at 2207, but Public Citizen asks for no more than compliance with the legislative scheme embodied in the federal rules. 63 In seeking to defeat Public Citizen's claim, Liggett and amici Product Liability Advisory Council, Inc., and Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association of the United States, Inc., have pointed to some expansive language in Seattle Times, Anderson and similar cases to bolster their claim that the public should not be afforded access to discovery materials. See, e.g., Seattle Times, 467 U.S. at 33, 104 S.Ct. at 2207 (pretrial depositions and interrogatories are not public components of a civil trial); Mokhiber, 537 A.2d at 1110 (there exists no common law tradition of access to discovery materials as such). Liggett and amici have used these statements to launch broad-based policy arguments to the effect that litigants have legitimate privacy interests in discovery materials and that permitting public access would undermine these privacy interests and excessively disrupt the litigation process. We acknowledge that our own Anderson opinion seemingly lends some support to this contention. 805 F.2d at 12 (permitting public access to discovery might actually make the civil discovery process more complicated and burdensome than it already is); see also Marcus, Myth and Reality in Protective Order Litigation, 69 Cornell L. Rev. 1 (1983) (generally criticizing claimed rights of public access to discovery). 64 We think, however, that these arguments and authorities are misplaced here. All of the cases upon which Liggett and amici rely are cases where the claimed right of access was based not on the federal rules, but on the common law or the first amendment. They are cases where, in essence, litigants put forth common law and constitutional arguments in an effort to trump application of the federal rules standard for protective orders. In rejecting such arguments and adhering to the federal rules standard, courts sensibly have noted that a contrary result would lead to thwarting the interests of privacy and litigative efficiency which are embodied in the federal rules. But nothing in those opinions purported to elevate privacy and efficiency as factors to be considered over and above compliance with the federal rules. Rather, the point of the cases was that, because of privacy and efficiency concerns, the federal rules should be followed. 65 Thus, when in Anderson we noted that [t]here was no tradition of public access to depositions before [passage of the federal rules in] 1938, we went on to say that now, under Rule 5(d), courts may require public filing of discovery requests and responses. 805 F.2d at 12. Likewise, in Alexander Grant & Co. Litigation, the Eleventh Circuit recognized that, on the one hand, private litigants have protectable privacy interests in confidential information disclosed through discovery, but it added that the means for protecting that privacy interest is Rule 26(c), not judicial fiat. 820 F.2d at 355. 66 Liggett and amici would have us turn these cases on their heads by holding that privacy and litigative efficiency concerns ought to work independently of the federal rules, actually limiting a district court's ability to deny protection under Rule 26(c), even when no good cause is shown. We are not willing to do so. This case involves a claim of access to discovery materials under the federal rules and we believe that the merits of the claim must be judged by the text of the rules and the applicable cases interpreting the rules. The rules themselves seek to accommodate concerns of privacy and litigative efficiency, and we find no reason for imposing additional judge-made constraints on the district court's control of discovery. Accordingly, we turn to consideration of the relevant federal rules. 67 Centrally at issue is Rule 26(c), which permits a district court to issue protective orders covering discovery materials upon a showing of good cause: 68 Upon motion by a party or by the person from whom discovery is sought, and for good cause shown, the court ... may make any order which justice requires to protect a party or person from annoyance, embarrassment, oppression or undue burden or expense.... 69 As the Second Circuit has noted, 70 A plain reading of the language of Rule 26(c) demonstrates that the party seeking a protective order has the burden of showing that good cause exists for issuance of that order. It is equally apparent that the obverse also is true, i.e., if good cause is not shown, the discovery materials in question should not receive judicial protection and therefore would be open to the public for inspection.... Any other conclusion effectively would negate the good cause requirement of Rule 26(c): Unless the public has a presumptive right of access to discovery materials, the party seeking to protect the materials would have no need for a judicial order since the public would not be allowed to examine the materials in any event. 71 In re Agent Orange Product Liability Litigation, 821 F.2d 139, 145-46 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 108 S.Ct. 289, 344, 98 L.Ed.2d 249 (1987), aff'g 104 F.R.D. 559, 567 (E.D.N.Y. 1985). Rule 26(c)'s good cause requirement means that, [a]s a general proposition, pretrial discovery must take place in the public unless compelling reasons exist for denying the public access to the proceedings. American Telephone & Telegraph Co. v. Grady, 594 F.2d 594, 596 (7th Cir.1978), cert. denied, 440 U.S. 971, 99 S.Ct. 1533, 59 L.Ed.2d 787 (1979); accord Wilk v. American Medical Ass'n, 635 F.2d 1295, 1299 (7th Cir.1980); In re Coordinated Pretrial Proceedings in Petroleum Products Antitrust Litigation, 101 F.R.D. 34, 38-41 (C.D. Cal. 1984); Note, Nonparty Access to Discovery Materials in the Federal Courts, 94 Harv.L.Rev. 1085, 1085-86 (1981). Rule 26(c) thus lends support to the right of access claimed by Public Citizen and found by the district court below. 72 We agree with the Second Circuit. It is implicit in Rule 26(c)'s good cause requirement that ordinarily (in the absence of good cause) a party receiving discovery materials might make them public. In this instance, Public Citizen wished to relieve the plaintiff of the burden of an order that prevented it from making public previously obtained discovery materials. Given the fact that Public Citizen directly benefitted from modification of that order, and for the reasons previously pointed out, we conclude that it had standing to intervene in the case and to ask the court to modify its pre-existing protective order.