Let the Sun Shine In....
As noted previously, court secrecy, especially in product liability cases, kills.
A colleague from Public Justice, Arthur Bryant (whose ongoing heroic efforts on behalf of all of us should be commended), sent this item from Bloomberg BNA suggesting that courts' tolerance for secrecy may be waning.
It cites 3 important recent decisions on this issue:
1. Pollard v. Remington Arms LLC, W.D. Mo., No. 13-cv-00086, protective order denied, 12/3/14
“Given that this case involves alleged design flaws with the Walker Fire Control assembly, there is a strong public interest in not allowing the Court's orders to be used as a shield that precludes disclosure of this danger,” the Pollard court said.
2. Guardino v. Graco Children's Prods., Inc., 2015 BL 392041, N.Y. Sup. Ct., No. 42325/2010, 11/24/15
“[T]he Court finds that there is a strong public interest in a lawsuit involving the death of a child allegedly caused by a defective baby stroller,” the Guardino court said. “The parties' interest in keeping the details of their settlement confidential do not constitute good cause to the extent that it outweighs this public interest.”
The Guardino court also poetically observed that our "embrace of 'open Courts' is born of America's historical antipathy to any judicial proceeding that brings remembrance of that opprobrious body from the past, repudiated by revolutions and constitutions, of whom the mere mention of its name fills the Court with dread the secret tribunal that consigned its victims to grim fates without the pretense of legal protection, the feared and hated Star Chamber. [internal citations omitted] Its existence will always be a stain on the annals of a justice system, that, for the most part, has been the light of the World."
3. The Ctr. for Auto Safety v. Chrysler Grp. LLC, 2016 BL 6286, 9th Cir., No. 15-55084, 1/11/16.
In this case, the 9th Circuit stated that the successor to Chrysler Group LLC would have to give “compelling reasons” to seal defect-related documents in a class action over its power modules.
If indeed there is a trend towards transparency, that is a welcome change in favor of public safety.