Stone v. University of Maryland Medical System Corp., 87-3651
| Decision Date | 19 August 1988 |
| Docket Number | No. 87-3651,87-3651 |
| Citation | 855 F.2d 178 |
| Parties | 48 Ed. Law Rep. 1057, 15 Media L. Rep. 2375 H. Harlan STONE, M.D., Plaintiff-Appellant, Frederick K. Toy, M.D.; Walter Pegoli, M.D., Intervenors, v. UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND MEDICAL SYSTEM CORPORATION; Mary Humphries; John Dennis; Edward Brandt, Jr.; Susan Gillette; Morton I. Rapoport, Defendants-Appellees, The Baltimore Sun Company, Intervenor. (A). |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
Norman Roy Grutman (Jewel H. Bjork, Grutman, Miller, Greenspoon & Hendler, Henry P. Monaghan, New York City, John Philip Miller, Kaplan, Heyman, Greenberg, Engelman & Belgrad, P.A., Baltimore, Md., on brief), for plaintiff-appellant.
Diana G. Motz (Shale D. Stiller, Frank, Bernstein, Conaway & Goldman, on brief), Ralph S. Tyler, Asst. Atty. Gen. , for defendants-appellees.
Mary R. Craig (Doyle & Langhoff, Baltimore, Md., on brief), for intervenor.
M. King Hill, Jr. (John R. Penhallegon, Connie E. Williams, Smith, Somerville & Case, Baltimore, Md., on brief), for intervenors.
Before PHILLIPS, ERVIN, and WILKINSON, Circuit Judges.
In this appeal, we consider the district court's order sealing the entire record in this case. In In re Knight Publishing Co., 743 F.2d 231 (4th Cir.1984), this court established a set of procedures which must be followed when a district court seals judicial records or documents. The district court failed to follow these mandatory procedures in this case. Because this was prejudicial error, we remand with instructions to the district court to reconsider its decision in accordance with Knight.
Dr. Harlan Stone was Chief of the Division of General Surgery and a member of the medical staff of the University of Maryland Medical System Corporation (the Hospital), as well as Professor of Surgery at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. In 1986, malpractice actions were filed against Stone, the Hospital, and several other doctors. An internal peer review committee and an external review committee investigated the situation. On June 13, 1986, Stone met with the individual defendants and resigned his positions. In November, 1986, Stone sued the Hospital, several of its officials, and several officials of the University of Maryland, claiming that he had been forced to resign his positions in violation of his right to due process.
On July 22, 1987, the parties moved jointly to seal the record in this case. In a one-sentence order issued the next day, the district court sealed the entire record, with the exception of the complaint, amended complaint and answers. No hearing was held on the motion to seal, and no reasons for the order were stated. In October, 1987, the district court granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment, and Stone appealed. The Baltimore Sun moved in this court to intervene for the limited purpose of challenging the seal order. Drs. Toy and Pegoli, members of the Hospital staff, moved to intervene to challenge the Sun's motion to unseal. Those motions were granted in January, 1988. In an opinion filed contemporaneously with this one, we have affirmed the district court's entry of summary judgment in favor of all defendants. *
The Sun contends that the order below violates its rights of access to judicial records as protected both by common law and by the First Amendment. The common law presumes a right to inspect and copy judicial records and documents. Nixon v. Warner Communications, Inc., 435 U.S. 589, 597, 98 S.Ct. 1306, 1311, 55 L.Ed.2d 570 (1978). The common law presumption of access may be overcome if competing interests outweigh the interest in access, and a court's denial of access is reviewable only for abuse of discretion. See Rushford v. The New Yorker Magazine, Inc., 846 F.2d 249, 253 (4th Cir.1988); In re Washington Post Co., 807 F.2d 383, 390 (4th Cir.1986).
Where the First Amendment guarantees access, on the other hand, access may be denied only on the basis of a compelling governmental interest, and only if the denial is narrowly tailored to serve that interest. Rushford, 846 F.2d at 253 (citing Press-Enterprise Co. v. Superior Court, 464 U.S. 501, 510, 104 S.Ct. 819, 824, 78 L.Ed.2d 629 (1984)). Because the First Amendment and the common law provide different levels of protection, it is necessary to determine the source of the Sun's right of access before its claim may be evaluated. The district court's order fails to state whether it is based on the common law or the First Amendment.
We note that different levels of protection may attach to the various records and documents involved in this case. While the common law presumption in favor of access attaches to all "judicial records and documents," Nixon, 435 U.S. at 597, 98 S.Ct. at 1311, the First Amendment guarantee of access has been extended only to particular judicial records and documents. See, e.g., Rushford, 846 F.2d at 253 (); In re Washington Post, 807 F.2d at 390 (). The district court in this case ordered sealed the entire record without indicating exactly what that record contained. On remand, it must determine the source of the right of access with respect to each document sealed. Only then can it accurately weigh the competing interests at stake.
Those competing interests must be weighed in accord with the procedures mandated by In re Knight Publishing Co., 743 F.2d 231 (4th Cir.1984). Under Knight, a court must first give the public notice of a request to seal and a reasonable opportunity to challenge it. Id. at 235. While individual notice is unwarranted, the court must notify persons present in the courtroom of the request, or docket it "reasonably in advance of deciding the issue." Id. The court must consider less drastic alternatives to sealing and, if it decides to seal documents, must "state the reasons for its decision to seal supported by specific findings, and the reasons for rejecting alternatives to sealing in order to provide an adequate record for review." Id.
In this case, the district court failed utterly to meet the requirements of Knight. It failed to give notice of the request to seal, to docket it reasonably in advance of deciding the issue, or to provide interested parties an opportunity to object to sealing. The record fails to make clear the circumstances surrounding the entry of the seal order. The Sun suggests that the motion to seal was never docketed and that the order was entered in chambers. Neither the intervening doctors nor the parties dispute this suggestion. What is clear, though, is that the Sun was never given a reasonable opportunity to object to the entry of the order.
The district court's order also fails to state any reasons for its entry or to support those reasons with specific findings. The arguments raised before this court by the intervenors pose serious questions regarding the extent of the competing interests at stake in this case, and the district court's order leaves us guessing as to how it resolved those questions, or whether it even considered them.
Under Maryland law, the proceedings, records, and files of a medical review committee are not discoverable or admissible in civil actions arising out of matters reviewed by the committee. Md. (Health Occ.) Code Ann. Sec. 14-601(d) (1987 Cum.Supp.). The intervening doctors argue that this statute reflects Maryland's strong public policy favoring confidentiality of medical review proceedings and that that policy outweighs the presumption in favor of public access to judicial records. Before sealing the record, the district court should have determined whether the records sealed came within the statute's coverage. If it found that they did, it should have determined whether the right of access nevertheless outweighed the public policy expressed in Sec. 14-601(d). Even if the district court considered these questions before sealing the record, it erred in failing to afford interested parties an opportunity to address them, and...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
American Civil Liberties Union v. Holder
... ... Hallmark Health System, Inc., 349 F.Supp.2d 170, 173 (D.Mass. 2004) ... of access." In re Management Systems Corp., 1995 WL 541623 (4th Cir. 1995) (unpublished) ... judicial records and documents." Stone v. University of ... Page 661 ... Maryland, ... ...
-
Level 3 Communications v. Limelight Networks, Inc., Civil Action No. 2:07cv589.
... ... v. Royal Sovereign Corp., 21 F.3d 1558, 1564 (Fed.Cir.1994)) ... analytical division, because, in our legal system, the "right of public access to documents or ... 1306; Wash. Post, 386 F.3d at 575; Stone v. Univ. of Md. Med. Sys. Corp., 855 F.2d 178, ... ...
- Hernandez v. Pistotnik
- Co. Doe v. Tenenbaum, Civil Action No. 8:11–cv–02958–AW
-
Protecting and enforcing protective orders: easier said than done: with challenges, even from third parties, increasing, counsel must carefully consider how these orders are drafted and entered.
...v. Cranford Ins. Co., 905 F.2d 1424, 1428 (10th Cir. 1990), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 1073 (1991); Stone v. Univ. of Md. Med. Sys. Corp., 855 F.2d 178 (4th Cir. 1988); In re "Agent Orange" Prod. Liab. Litig., 821 F.2d 139 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 953 (1987); Meyer Goldberg Inc. of Lor......