Opinion ID: 176129
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Whether There is a Clear and Indisputable Right to the Writ

Text: A district court abuses its discretion if it based its ruling on an erroneous view of the law or on a clearly erroneous assessment of the evidence, or if it has rendered a decision that `cannot be located within the range of permissible decisions.' Sims, 534 F.3d at 132 (citations omitted). We will issue the writ only if a district court committed a clear and indisputable abuse of its discretion in one of these ways. See City of New York, 607 F.3d at 929. As we explain below, it is clear and indisputable that, given the privacy interests at stake, the district court's decision ordering disclosure of the wiretap conversations prior to any ruling on the legality of the interceptions and without limiting the disclosure to relevant conversations cannot be located within the range of permissible decisions. A writ of mandamus is therefore appropriate. Below, we first examine whether Appellants are correct that Title III prohibits all pre-trial discovery disclosure orders in civil proceedings. Because, as we have previously ruled, Title III does not prohibit all that it does not permit, and because there is an independent civil discovery right of access to such materials in the hands of a private litigant, we reject that argument. It does not follow, however, that such materials should always be disclosed. We find that, when addressing whether or not to order disclosure of wiretap materials in civil discovery, a district court must balance the privacy interests at stake against the right of access at issue in the case. We conclude that, in the instant case, the district court clearly exceeded its discretion in conducting that balancing, because the privacy interests at stake in the instant case, at least at this stage of the litigation, clearly outweigh the right of access. [8]