Court Opinion

ID: 9885029
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-06 03:28:03.368529+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:39:31.842154
License: Public Domain

WOZNIAK, Judge
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent.
The Supreme Court has never recognized a first amendment right of access to civil judicial proceedings or records. There is, however, a common law right. Craig v. Harney, 331 U.S. 367, 374, 67 S.Ct. 1249, 1254, 91 L.Ed. 1546 (1947). This case concerns only the common law right. This right includes the public’s right to inspect and copy judicial records, and serves to protect the integrity of the law enforcement and judicial processes. Nixon v. Warner Communications, Inc., 435 U.S. 589, 599, 98 S.Ct. 1306, 1312, 55 L.Ed.2d 570 (1978); United States v. Hubbard, 650 F.2d 293, 315 (D.C.Cir.1980).
However, this common law right is not absolute. Nixon, 435 U.S. at 598, 98 S.Ct. at 1312. All courts have supervisory power over their own records and files. Id. Thus, a trial court may, in its discretion, order a file sealed “if the public’s right of access is outweighed by competing interests.” In re Knight Publishing Co., 743 F.2d 231, 235 (4th Cir.1984).
In Nixon, the Supreme Court discussed a number of the exceptions to the right of access:
[Ajccess has been denied where court files might have become a vehicle for improper purposes. For example, the common law right of inspection has bowed before the power of a court to insure that its records are not “used to gratify private spite or promote public scandal” through the publication of “the painful and sometimes disgusting details of a divorce case.” Similarly, courts *329have refused to permit their files to serve as reservoirs of libelous statements for press consumption, or as sources of business information that might harm a litigant’s competitive standing.
Nixon, 435 U.S. at 598, 98 S.Ct. at 1312; see also In re KSTP Television, 504 F.Supp. 360, 361 (D.Minn.1980).
Because the issue of limiting access is necessarily fact-bound, there can be no comprehensive formula for decisionmaking. Nixon, 435 U.S. at 598-99, 98 S.Ct. at 1312. “[T]he decision as to access is one best left to the sound discretion of the trial court, a discretion to be exercised in light of the relevant facts and circumstances of the particular case.” Id. In KSTP Television, Judge Devitt discussed these principles from Nixon:
The Court there emphasized that the decision as to access to public records is one to be made by the trial court in light of the relevant facts and circumstances of the particular case, Id. at 598-99, 98 S.Ct. at 1312. The [Nixon] Court directs us to exercise “an informed discretion ... with a sensitive appreciation of the circumstances,” but we are cautioned that exercising our responsibility “does not permit copying on demand.” Id., 608, 98 S.Ct. at 1314.
Id. at 361.
Thus, the only question on appeal, and the applicable standard of review, is whether the trial court abused its discretion in foreclosing access to the files. Id.; Wilson v. American Motors Corp., 759 F.2d 1568, 1570 (11th Cir.1985).
The majority holds that a “compelling governmental interest” must be shown, before files can be sealed.1 The majority derives this proposition from Wilson, 759 F.2d at 1571, which in turn derived the language from Globe Newspaper Co. v. Superior Court, 457 U.S. 596, 606-07, 102 S.Ct. 2613, 2619-20, 73 L.Ed.2d 248 (1982). However, Globe Newspaper involved the public’s right of access to a criminal trial rather than to a civil proceeding. As is well-recognized, the application of principles enunciated in the context of criminal proceedings to civil proceedings is highly dubious. In fact, the District of Columbia Circuit has concluded that Globe Newspaper and the later criminal case of Richmond Newspapers, Inc. v. Virginia, 448 U.S. 555, 100 S.Ct. 2814, 65 L.Ed.2d 973 (1980), do not modify the law for civil proceedings as expressed in Nixon. Hubbard, 650 F.2d at 316. Thus, the majority errs in adding the extra hurdle of a “compelling governmental interest.”
In my opinion, the trial court adequately considered the relevant facts and circumstances of this particular case and weighed the relative interests of the parties. I would find no abuse of discretion by the trial court in sealing the settlement amounts and terms.2
In this case, no valid public purpose can be served by disclosure. Apparently petitioners originally sought access to these files in order to prepare feature articles to be published on the first anniversary of the disaster, which occurred on January 21, 1985. At oral argument, petitioners admitted that the only information they have not had access to is the amount and terms of *330each settlement agreement. All of the information related to liability is available in the files of the consolidated cases currently pending in Hennepin County.3
Disclosure of the amount and terms of each settlement can serve little, if any, public purpose. The petitioners have referred us to United States v. Criden, 675 F.2d 550 (3d Cir.1982), a criminal case, in which the court listed six societal interests in public access to judicial records. First, public access facilitates educated debate of governmental affairs. Second, public access assures that a judicial proceeding is both fairly conducted and perceived as being so. Third, public access discourages perjury. Fourth, public access enhances the performance of the participants in the judicial proceeding. Fifth, public access prevents partial or biased judicial decision-making. Sixth, public access channels the societal response to a particular event of public interest. With the possible exception of number two, none of these societal interests listed in Criden apply to the bare dollar amounts of private settlement agreements worked out between two litigants.
In KSTP Television, two television stations sought release of videotapes which had been made by a kidnapper of himself and his victim. The district court denied the request. In his decision, Judge Devitt stated:
This additional information, even if of some value, is not the type of information which depicts, criticizes or causes the public to reflect on the workings of society's institutions; it is not the type of information necessary to maintain informed consent for sustaining a free and democratic society.
KSTP Television, 504 F.Supp. at 363.
Wilson, 759 F.2d 1568, cited by the majority, does not support their position. In Wilson, the Eleventh Circuit held that the district court abused its discretion in sealing the trial record in a wrongful death action. In Wilson, however, the party seeking access to the record was the plaintiff in another wrongful death action against the same defendant. She sought access to the entire record, including the pleadings, affidavits, depositions, and transcripts, in order to invoke offensive collateral estoppel in her suit. A valid public purpose was thus shown. The court noted “the somewhat unusual circumstances involved” in the case, which actually went to trial and to partial consideration by a jury, before settling. 759 F.2d at 1571.
In contrast to the negligible public interest in disclosure here, the privacy interests of the grieving families in these cases is compelling. They have a right to be left alone. They have a right not to have their tragedy thrust into the public eye without their consent and with no redeeming public purpose except the satisfaction of the public’s idle curiosity. They have a right not to have their personal financial affairs splashed across the pages of a newspaper. They have a right to be free from burglary, harassment, and intimidation, instances of which have already been documented in these cases. They have the right, as the trial court put it, “to grieve in private.”
The vast majority of settlement agreements in civil cases are reached out of court. Petitioners do not attempt to argue that they should have access to the amounts and terms of out-of-court settlement agreements. They argue, however, that they should have access to the amounts and terms of these settlements because they were arrived at in open court and approved by the court.4 Presumably, however, the only reason that these private *331settlement agreements were not arrived at out of court is that the wrongful death statute, Minn.Stat. § 573.02, subd. 1 (1984), and Rule 2, Code of Rules for the District Court, require that settlements in wrongful death actions be approved by the court. The purpose of this rule is to allow the court to order distribution of the recovery in accordance with the proportionate pecuniary loss of the parties entitled to recovery. There is nothing in the wrongful death statute or in Rule 2 to indicate that court approval is required because of some need for public oversight of the settlement process. See An Explanation of Rule 2, Address by Hon. Albin Pearson, Minnesota State Bar Association Convention (June 20, 1952), reprinted at 51 Minn.Stat.Ann. 432 (West 1980).5
Under the facts of this case, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in refusing disclosure of the settlement amounts. No valid public purpose is served by such disclosure. The grieving families have a right to be left alone.

. The majority makes much of the fact that these settlements were discussed in open court before the records were sealed. It is true that, once the media lawfully obtains information, it cannot constitutionally be restrained. Smith v. Daily Mail Publishing Co., 443 U.S. 97, 105, 99 S.Ct. 2667, 2672, 61 L.Ed.2d 399 (1979); Oklahoma Publishing Co. v. District Court, 430 U.S. 308, 97 S.Ct. 1045, 51 L.Ed.2d 355 (1977). Here, however, although the petitioners could have had access to the settlement hearing, they did not attend the hearing. Petitioners did not obtain the information prior to its being sealed and the respondent did not restrain publication of information that was already lawfully in the hands of the press. In short, this is not a “gag order” case.

. I agree with the petitioners that the fact that petitioners did not exhaust their remedies at law, specifically by making a request under the interim rules on access to judicial records, is not dispositive of this case. It is manifestly clear from reading the interim rules that they are not intended to provide for a situation like the one in this case, in which judicial records have been sealed by order of a district court judge.

. I note that not only the amount and terms of each settlement, but the entire file in each of these cases, was sealed. As to those materials in the files other than the settlement terms and amounts, I agree with the majority that the trial court abused its discretion in ordering these materials sealed. As to the settlement amounts and terms, however, I would affirm the trial court.

. Counsel for petitioner Midwest Radio and Television asserted at oral argument that, simply by virtue of the fact that these settlements were approved by the court, and because our courts are public institutions, the amounts and *331terms of the settlement are per se public information and the media has an unlimited right of access. While the majority here does not adopt this position, I believe it is important to point out that this position flies in the face of the discretionary balancing test standard which the United States Supreme Court has held applies in these cases. See Nixon, 435 U.S. at 599, 98 S.Ct. at 1312.

. Of the 26 cases arising out of the Galaxy Airlines disaster that have settled so far, only these five required court approval. It is difficult to see why the press should have access to the settlement amounts in one group of cases and not the other.