01-1523 Jessup v. Luther, et al.

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“The public has an interest in knowing what terms of settlement a federal judge would approve and perhaps therefore nudge the parties to agree to. All this would be of no moment, however, if the agreement were not in the files of the court, for it is the agreement that the newspaper wants. Yet for some reason there is a copy of the agreement in those files. There is a suggestion that the judge has retained a copy in order to resolve any disputes the parties may have over its meaning. If so, there has been a mistake, because, to repeat, once a suit is dismissed with prejudice the judge loses all power to enforce the terms of the settlement that may lie behind that dismissal… No matter; the fact remains that the district court’s files now contain a document that reflects input by a federal judge, and so the document is presumptively a public document.

“Documents in judicial files are presumptively open to the public and neither the magistrate judge nor any of the parties has given us any reason to think the presumption might be rebutted in this case. The order of the district court is therefore reversed with directions to grant the relief sought by the intervenor.”

Reversed.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of Illinois, Bernthal, Mag. J., Posner, J.