Opinion ID: 794347
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: dispositive motions—documents covered by the compelling reasons standard

Text: 31 Under our precedent, the City was required to present articulable facts identifying the interests favoring continued secrecy, Foltz, 331 F.3d at 1136 (internal citation omitted), and to show that these specific interests overcame the presumption of access by outweighing the public interest in understanding the judicial process. Hagestad, 49 F.3d at 1434 (citation omitted). Instead, the City complains that it had no chance to present compelling reasons, and that the magistrate judge failed to even permit . . . a fair opportunity to be heard on the matter. 32 But, in fact, the City did have a chance to show compelling reasons and squandered it. In the October 2003 order, the magistrate judge explicitly asked for motions for reconsideration of her order adopting the special master's report. She pointed to the issuance of Foltz, observing that the Court concludes that, in order to retain any protected status for documents attached to a summary judgment motion, the proponent must meet the `compelling reasons' standard and not the lesser `good cause' determination. Rather than identifying or even attempting to articulate compelling reasons, the City's motion to reconsider simply objected that the City was not given enough time to articulate such compelling reasons. 6 33 The City further argues that the magistrate judge failed to articulate reasons for unsealing the record even though it was the City's burden to articulate reasons for sealing the record, claiming that the January 22, 2004 order deprived [the City] of a meaningful discussion and analysis by the Magistrate Judge, of the factors she considered in her `compelling reasons' determination. This proposed approach is upside down. The judge need not document compelling reasons to unseal; rather the proponent of sealing bears the burden with respect to sealing. A failure to meet that burden means that the default posture of public access prevails. 34 Even so, the magistrate judge did not summarily order the production of the City's documents. Rather, she conducted an exhausting if not exhaustive in camera review of the materials. 7 After this review, the magistrate judge noted that the testimony and documents attached to the dispositive motions do not contain information that could be used for `scandalous or libelous' purposes, and that these documents did not contain sensitive personal information. She also determined that deposition testimony on confidential informants and criminal investigations was years old and largely resulted in criminal indictments which were made public over three years ago. She found, however, that the personal information of Kamakana and various law enforcement officers (home addresses and social security numbers) met the compelling reason standard. 35 It is difficult to know what more detail the magistrate judge could have provided in addressing the City's request to keep these documents sealed, especially since the City itself never provided specific compelling reasons to grapple with and consider. When sealing documents attached to a dispositive pleading, a district court must base its decision on a compelling reason and articulate the factual basis for its ruling, without relying on hypothesis or conjecture. Hagestad, 49 F.3d at 1434. In the absence of specifically articulated reasons, meaningful appellate review is impossible. Id. at 1435. 8 It makes little sense, however, to require the same specificity where the court is simply effectuating the presumption of public access by unsealing documents covered by a blanket protective order. 36 A review of the record points up the inadequacy of the City's declarations, which largely make conclusory statements about the content of the documents—that they are confidential and that, in general, their production would, amongst other things, hinder CIU's future operations with other agencies, endanger informants' lives, and cast HPD officers in a false light. These conclusory offerings do not rise to the level of compelling reasons sufficiently specific to bar the public access to the documents. Under these circumstances, and given the detail of the judge's analysis and the case law, we conclude that the magistrate judge did not abuse her discretion in declining to seal the documents attached to summary judgment motions. 9
37 In appealing the magistrate judge's order, the United States requested a limited number of specific redactions of documents filed with dispositive motions. These redactions have the virtue of being limited and clear, identifying specific names or references to be kept secret. The problem is the broad, categorical approach the United States took to justify these redactions. It asserted a blanket rule that, as a non-party to the litigation, it was entitled to rely on the protections of the stipulated protective order. Although the United States proposed specific redactions, it justified them by invoking general categories of privileges without elaboration. Finally, the United States claimed that it sought redactions for information that was traditionally kept secret.
38 The United States argues that, as a non-party to the litigation, it relied on the stipulated protective order when consenting to provide depositions of federal witnesses and documents, and that such reliance constituted a compelling reason sufficient to overcome the presumption of access. We have no such categorical rule regarding protective orders. To the contrary, we have held that a non-party's reliance on a blanket protective order is unreasonable and is not a compelling reason that rebuts the presumption of access. Foltz, 331 F.3d at 1138; Beckman Indus., Inc. v. Int'l Ins. Co., 966 F.2d 470, 475-76 (9th Cir.1992) (noting that [t]he extent to which a party can rely on a protective order should depend on the extent to which the order induced the party to allow discovery and that reliance on a stipulated . . . blanket protective order does not justify sealing court records). 39 The position of the United States illustrates the hazard of stipulated protective orders. These orders often contain provisions that purport to put the entire litigation under lock and key without regard to the actual requirements of Rule 26(c). Like many pretrial protective orders, the judge signed off on the order without the benefit of making an individualized determination as to specific documents. The order here was geared primarily to discovery, but with a recognition that confidential documents may find their way into a court file or be used at trial. For example, in addition to recognizing that the court could modify the order at any time for good cause, the order required that the parties obtain a court order to file materials under seal. Thus, the United States should have been on notice that confidential categorization of discovery documents under the protective order was not a guarantee of confidentiality, especially in the event of a court filing. Although the magistrate judge expressly approved and entered the protective order, the order contained no good cause findings as to specific documents that would justify reliance by the United States. See Beckman, 966 F.2d at 476. Thus, the claimed reliance on the order is not a compelling reason that rebuts the presumption of access. See Foltz, 331 F.3d at 1138.
40 Although the United States identifies the redactions it seeks by page number and line number, it does not provide similarly specific compelling reasons to justify these redactions. Instead, the United States purports to justify each redaction by listing one of four general categories of privilege (privacy, law enforcement, confidential source, and ongoing investigation). Simply mentioning a general category of privilege, without any further elaboration or any specific linkage with the documents, does not satisfy the burden. 41 We note that these redactions and justifications are the same ones the United States offered under the good cause standard of Rule 26(c). The government took no steps to explain how these asserted privileges also met the more demanding compelling reasons standard. As we explained in Foltz, a good cause showing without more will not satisfy a compelling reasons test. See id. at 1135-36. Because the United States simply resubmitted its good cause showing without more, the magistrate judge was well within her discretion to deny the redactions it sought under the compelling reasons standard. 42 A review of the United States' proposed redactions supports the decision to unseal the records. For example, many names or references for which the United States sought redaction were either already publicly available or were available in other documents being produced to the Honolulu Advertiser. The magistrate judge noted an example of this phenomenon: The United States sought redactions for references to Marirose Tangi and Gabriel Aio even though both were mentioned by name in a press release issued by the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Hawaii. 43 There are more examples. In one set of redactions, the United States sought to delete deposition references to events and persons mentioned by name in Kamakana's complaint. Another set of redactions would delete the names of persons, referred to only by code name in Kamakana's complaint, whose depositions (and names) were ordered produced before the United States' proposed redactions. 10 Finally, another proposed redaction was based on the ongoing investigation privilege even though the name of the operation was referenced several times without redaction on the same page. 44 In her order, the magistrate judge acknowledged the nature of Kamakana's claims and concluded that the testimony and documents concerning this matter are of significant public concern. She also determined that the testimony and documents did not contain sensitive personal information or information that would be used for scandalous or libelous purposes. Finally, as to the documents she ordered to remain sealed, the magistrate judge concluded that disclosure of the officers' home address and social security numbers could expose the officers and their families to harm or identify theft. 45
46 The United States suggests that documents subject to the privacy, law enforcement, and official information privileges are traditionally kept secret and therefore subject to seal. 11 These privileges do not automatically fall within the traditionally kept secret exception. This phrase is a term of art specific to the right of access; a class of documents is covered by that term if there is  neither a history of access nor an important public need justifying access. Times Mirror, 873 F.2d at 1219 (emphasis added). Few documents are categorized thus because the consequences are drastic — there is no right of access to documents which have traditionally been kept secret for important policy reasons, id., meaning that a party need not show compelling reasons to keep such records sealed. 47 Thus far, we have identified two types of documents as traditionally kept secret: grand jury transcripts and warrant materials during the pre-indictment phase of an investigation. Id. Though these documents may roughly fall into the category of law enforcement, they are very specific types of documents that warrant the highest protection. We do not readily add classes of documents to this category simply because such documents are usually or often deemed confidential. 12 Indeed, even the documents we have identified as traditionally kept secret are not sacrosanct. 13 Simply invoking a blanket claim, such as privacy or law enforcement, will not, without more, suffice to exempt a document from the public's right of access. 48 Neither will it suffice to show, as the United States argues, that a document merits sealing because it would be exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. § 552. Such exempt documents are not automatically privileged in civil discovery. See Friedman v. Bache Halsey Stuart Shields, Inc., 738 F.2d 1336, 1344 (D.C.Cir.1984) (If information in government documents is exempt from disclosure to the general public under FOIA, it does not automatically follow the information is privileged . . . and thus not discoverable in civil litigation.). It is unsound to equate the FOIA exemptions and similar discovery privileges because the two schemes serve different purposes. Id. FOIA is a statutory scheme directed to regulating the public access to documents held by the federal government; the public's need for a document is unrelated to whether it will be disclosed. See Maricopa Audubon Soc'y v. United States Forest Serv., 108 F.3d 1082, 1087 (9th Cir.1997). By contrast, the public right of access to court documents is grounded on principles related to the public's right and need to access court proceedings. See Friedman, 738 F.2d at 1344. Thus, we will not import wholesale FOIA exemptions as new categories of documents traditionally kept secret under Times Mirror. 49