Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility

Civil Procedure

By: WISCONSIN LAW JOURNAL STAFF//August 22, 2014//

Civil Procedure

By: WISCONSIN LAW JOURNAL STAFF//August 22, 2014//

Listen to this article

Civil Procedure

Intervenors are not entitled to force public disclosure of exhibits filed under seal that were not considered by the district court.

“Bond’s dicta must be measured against our repeated statements that the presumption of public access turns on what the judge did, not on what the parties filed. The documents that our intervenors seek were not reviewed and deemed irrelevant, a step that could reveal something valuable about the judicial process; instead the district judge explicitly declined to consider them after plaintiffs failed to offer a justification for their filing. Perhaps Rule 5(d) allows ‘use’ to be inferred from filing when the district judge is silent, but filing is not invariably enough under the standard enunciated in Union Oil and Specht. Public access depends on whether a document ‘influenc[ed] or underpin[ned] the judicial decision’. Baxter International, Inc. v. Abbott Laboratories, 297 F.3d 544, 545 (7th Cir. 2002). The fact of filing may support an inference of influence. (It suggests at least that the document was at the judge’s fingertips.) But not always, or Seattle Times’ protection of discovery materials would be toothless. And certainly not here, where plaintiffs could not (or would not) explain why they had filed the documents, and the judge did not even look at them. The public has no right to access these documents, which cannot conceivably aid the understanding of judicial decisionmaking.”

Affirmed.

13-1626 City of Greenville v. Syngenta Crop Protection, LLC

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois, Gilbert, J., Easterbrook, J.

Full Text

Polls

Should Wisconsin Supreme Court rules be amended so attorneys can't appeal license revocation after 5 years?

View Results

Loading ... Loading ...

Legal News

See All Legal News

WLJ People

Sea all WLJ People

Opinion Digests