Opinion ID: 75551
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Common-Law Right of Access

Text: 17 The common-law right of access to judicial proceedings, an essential component of our system of justice, is instrumental in securing the integrity of the process. See Richmond Newspapers, 448 U.S. at 564-74, 100 S. Ct. at 2821-26 (providing panegyric on the value of openness). Beyond establishing a general presumption that criminal and civil actions should be conducted publicly, the common-law right of access includes the right to inspect and copy public records and documents. Nixon v. Warner Comm., Inc., 435 U.S. 589, 597, 98 S. Ct. 1306, 1312 (1978). The right to inspect and copy is not absolute, however, id., and a judge's exercise of discretion in deciding whether to release judicial records should be informed by a sensitive appreciation of the circumstances that led to . . . [the] production [of the particular document in question]. Id. at 598, 602-03, 98 S. Ct. at 1312, 1314-15. Not unlike the Rule 26 standard, the common-law right of access requires a balancing of competing interests. See Newman, 696 F.2d at 803. 18 Although there is some disagreement about where precisely the line should be drawn, when applying the common-law right of access federal courts traditionally distinguish between those items which may properly be considered public or judicial records and those that may not; the media and public presumptively have access to the former, but not to the latter. 7 An illustrative example is the treatment of discovery material, for which there is no common-law right of access, as these materials are neither public documents nor judicial records. McCarthy, 876 F.2d at 91. 19 In certain narrow circumstances, the common-law right of access demands heightened scrutiny of a court's decision to conceal records from the public and the media. Where the trial court conceals the record of an entire case, making no distinction between those documents that are sensitive or privileged and those that are not, it must be shown that the denial [of access] is necessitated by a compelling governmental interest, and is narrowly tailored to that interest. Wilson, 759 F.2d at 1571 (citation omitted); see also Brown, 960 F.2d at 1015-16. This heightened scrutiny is necessitated by the fact that entire civil cases otherwise open to the public are erased as if they never occurred. An example of this unusual circumstance is provided by Wilson, where the entire record, including pleadings, docket entries, orders, affidavits . . . depositions . . . and transcripts or court reporter's notes of hearings or trial proceedings, were all sealed by the court following settlement without regard to the fact that the trial had been an open public proceeding and the trial transcript had been part of the public record. Wilson, 759 F.2d at 1569, 1571. 20 Wilson and the similar case of Brown v. Advantage Engineering, Inc., 960 F.2d 1013 (11th Cir. 1992) outline the narrow circumstances within which heightened scrutiny is the appropriate measure for the common-law right of access. 8 Because the facts of this case are easily distinguishable from Wilson and Brown, the district court's application of the compelling interest standard, to the extent that it was predicated on the heightened scrutiny line of common-law right of access cases, was error. The common-law right of access standard as it applies to particular documents requires the court to balance the competing interests of the parties. See Newman, 696 F.2d at 803. We turn now to an examination of the documents at issue, and the context of the proceeding in which they were submitted to the court. 21 The Firestone documents were produced during discovery, but all of them were also filed with the court, under seal, in connection with pre-trial motions. Some of the documents were submitted to support motions to compel discovery; others were submitted to support summary judgment motions. 9 Significantly, all the documents were submitted under seal, and all were submitted by the Van Ettens: Firestone did not submit the documents for judicial consideration. 22 The Press contends, and the district court agreed, that because the documents were filed with the court they are judicial records and therefore subject to the common-law right of access. Such an approach does not distinguish between material filed with discovery motions and material filed in connection with more substantive motions. 10 We think a more refined approach is called for, one that accounts both for the tradition favoring access, as well as the unique function discovery serves in modern proceedings. See Leucadia v. Applied Extrusion Techs., Inc., 998 F.2d 157, 164-65 (3d Cir. 1993). The better rule is that material filed with discovery motions is not subject to the common-law right of access, whereas discovery material filed in connection with pretrial motions that require judicial resolution of the merits is subject to the common-law right, and we so hold. 11 This means that the Firestone documents filed in connection with motions to compel discovery are not subject to the common-law right of access. 23 Additionally, where a party has sought the protection of Rule 26, the fact that sealed material is subsequently submitted in connection with a substantive motion does not mean that the confidentiality imposed by Rule 26 is automatically forgone. Before disclosure is appropriate, a court must first conduct the common-law right of access balancing test. Because in this context the common-law right of access, like the constitutional right, requires the court to balance the respective interests of the parties, the Press's common-law right to the Firestone documents filed in connection with the motion for summary judgment may be resolved by the Rule 26 good cause balancing test. We turn next to a discussion of Rule 26.