Court Opinion

ID: 9777776
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 20:24:10.363183+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:33:01.615085
License: Public Domain

WHITHAM, Justice,
concurring.
The case is before us en banc on motion for rehearing. I withdraw my concurring opinion of March 4, 1986. The following is now my concurring opinion.
I join in the majority’s opinion. In doing so, I am influenced by a sentence contained in the Supreme Court’s opinion in Seattle Times Co. v. Rhinehart, 467 U.S. 20, 104 S.Ct. 2199, 2207-08, 81 L.Ed.2d 17 (1984) in footnote nineteen. There the court states that “[tjhus, to the extent that courthouse records could serve as a source of public information, access to that source customarily is subject to the control of the trial court.” Admittedly, Rhinehart involved first amendment rights to disseminate, in advance of trial, information gained through the pretrial discovery process. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court’s broad reference in the above-quoted sentence to “courthouse records” in a first amendment context must mean something. Otherwise, the Supreme Court would not have expanded the subject matter of “discovery” to the more broad scope of “courthouse records” in footnote nineteen. Therefore, I interpret the above-quoted sentence from Rhinehart to cover the orders, opinion and nondiscovery pleadings sought by the Times Herald in the present ease. Thus, the present case involves an alleged First Amendment right of the press to access to courthouse records under the control of a trial court. Therefore, in the context of the present case, I read the above-quoted sentence from Rhinehart to mean that trial court control of courthouse records does not violate First Amendment rights of the press. The right to speak and publish does not carry with it the unrestrained right to gather information. Rhinehart, 104 S.Ct. at 2207 (quoting Zemel v. Rusk, 381 U.S. 1, 16-17, 85 S.Ct. 1271, 1280-81, 14 L.Ed.2d 179 (1965)). Moreover, in my view, the Times Herald has shown no valid reason for this court to interfere with the trial court’s control over its records.
I am also influenced to join in the majority opinion by the Supreme Court’s approach to the question before it in Rhine-hart:
In addressing that question it is necessary to consider whether the “practice in question [furthers] an important or substantial governmental interest unrelated to the suppression of expression” and whether “the limitation of First Amendment freedoms [is] no greater than is necessary or essential to the protection of the particular governmental interest involved.”
Rhinehart, 104 S.Ct. at 2207. In my view, the trial court’s sealing order furthers an important and substantial governmental interest of the State of Texas; i.e., to encourage and facilitate the settlement of lawsuits pending in its courts. Furthermore, this important and substantial interest of the State is unrelated to the suppression of expression. To my mind, the State’s interest in encouraging and facilitating settlement of lawsuits pending in its courts stands unconnected to the suppression of expression. Obliging settlement of a lawsuit before trial on the merits is one thing. Hanging a newspaper editor for story content is another. Moreover, the limitation imposed by the trial court’s sealing order is no greater than is necessary or essential to the protection of the State’s interest in encouraging and facilitating the settlement of lawsuits pending in its courts. All the trial court did was accommodate an agreement of the parties to a lawsuit who wished to settle their dispute before trial on the merits. By so doing, the trial court did no more than encourage and facilitate the settlement of a lawsuit pending in a court of the State of Texas. The trial court did not order the Times Herald to cease gathering information about the lawsuit or about a certain judge for purposes of reelection evaluation. The trial court did not order the Times Herald never to publish information about the lawsuit or about a certain judge for purposes of re-election evaluation. On balance, therefore, I must conclude that the asserted First Amendment right of the Times Herald to the orders, opinion and non-discovery pleadings *942sought by the Times Herald must yield to a legitimate interest of the State of Texas which is unrelated to the suppression of expression and which is advanced within permissible limits.
Therefore, I agree with the majority that the common law right of access must bow to the sound discretion of the trial court and that neither the state nor the federal constitution affords the Times Herald a right of access to the “courthouse records” sought.