Foltz v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co.
| Decision Date | 18 June 2003 |
| Docket Number | No. 00-35187.,No. 00-35283.,No. 01-35137.,00-35187.,00-35283.,01-35137. |
| Citation | 331 F.3d 1122 |
| Parties | Debbie FOLTZ, Plaintiff, Consumer Action; United Policyholders; Texas Watch, Intervenors, and Tierney Adamson; Kevin Snead; Daniel P. Johnson, Intervenors-Appellants. v. STATE FARM MUTUAL AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE COMPANY, an Illinois corporation; California Institute of Medical Research & Technology, Inc., a foreign corporation dba Comprehensive Medical Review; Ralph Householder; Steven Becker, Defendants, v. April Jean Ho; Jim Mathis, Plaintiffs-Intervenors. Debbie Foltz, Plaintiff, and Tierney Adamson; Kevin Snead; Daniel P. Johnson, Intervenors-Appellants, v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company, an Illinois corporation, Defendant-Appellee, and California Institute of Medical Research & Technology, Inc., a foreign corporation dba Comprehensive Medical Review; Ralph Householder; Steven Becker, Defendants, v. April Jean Ho; Jim Mathis, Plaintiffs-Intervenors. Debbie Foltz, Plaintiff, April J. Ho; Jim Mathis; Tierney Adamson; Kevin Snead; Daniel P. Johnson, Intervenors, and Consumer Action; United Policy-holders; Texas Watch, Intervenors-Appellants, v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company, an Illinois corporation, Defendant-Appellee, and Steven Becker, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit |
Daniel J. Gatti, Salem, OR, for plaintiff Debbie Foltz.
Lawrence Walner, Chicago, IL, and Thomas D. D'Amore, Portland, OR, for intervenors-appellants Tierney Adamson, Kevin Snead, and Daniel P. Johnson.
Kathryn H. Clarke, Portland, OR, Leslie A. Brueckner, Trial Lawyers for Public Justice, Washington, D.C., and Matthew Whitman, Meyer & Wyse, Portland, OR, for intervenors-appellants Consumer Action, Texas Watch, and United Policyholders.
Stuart D. Jones, Portland, OR, Ralph C. Spooner, Spooner & Much, Salem, OR, I. Franklin Hunsaker, Bullivant, Houser, Bailey, Pendergrass & Hoffman, Portland, OR, and Vanessa Wells, Heller, Ehrman, White & McAuliffe, Palo Alto, CA, for defendant-appellee State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company.
Bernard W. Mann, San Diego, CA, for defendant California Institute of Medical Research & Technology.
Daniel J. Gatti, Salem, OR, for plaintiff-intervenor April Jean Ho.
Jean A. Magladry, Magladry Weigel, Bellevue, WA, and Ralph E. Wiser, III, Lake Oswego, WA, for plaintiff-intervenor Jim Mathis.
Douglas G. Schaller, Eugene Trial Lawyers Association, Eugene, OR, Amicus.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Oregon; Michael R. Hogan, Chief District Judge, Presiding. D.C. No. CV-94-06293-MRH.
Before: B. FLETCHER, O'SCANNLAIN, and BERZON, Circuit Judges.
This case calls upon us to determine when parties other than the original litigants may gain access to materials that a court has placed under protective seal. Private and Public Intervenors appeal. Private Intervenors appeal from the district court's refusal to unseal discovery materials and court records. Public Intervenors appeal from the dismissal of their second motion to unseal documents.
This case follows upon the settlement of a lawsuit that charged State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company ("State Farm") with fraud. In district court, intervenors representing the public moved for public access to sealed court records from that suit. Private Intervenors — individuals involved in collateral litigation against State Farm — sought access to both discovery materials and court records. The district court denied Public Intervenors' renewed motion to unseal documents. The district court granted in part the Private Intervenors' motions to unseal. Three categories of documents, however, remained under seal: (1) various discovery documents, following the denial of the Private Intervenors' motion to modify the protective order covering them; (2) the summary judgment motions and supporting materials; and (3) other court records that had previously been filed under seal pursuant to the district court's blanket protective order in discovery. These appeals followed.
We affirm the district court's denial of the Public Intervenors' motion. We affirm in part and reverse in part the Private Intervenors' motions to unseal, and remand with instructions.
In the underlying litigation, Debbie Foltz and others alleged that State Farm conspired with California Institute of Medical Research & Technology ("CMR"), which provided medical review services, to defraud insureds of personal injury protection owed to them under their State Farm automobile policies. Both State Farm and CMR were named as defendants in the Foltz litigation. During the discovery process, the defendants requested and the district court entered three protective orders. The first kept confidential all documentary evidence and testimony concerning a motion by State Farm to disqualify the law firm representing the plaintiff. The second specifically protected from disclosure a floppy disk produced by CMR during discovery. The third was a blanket protective order designed to keep secret all other "confidential information" produced by the parties in discovery and/or filed with the court, absent agreement or an order by the district court. Reproduced in full in the appendix, the protective order in pertinent part stated that: "Confidential Information shall not be disclosed, disseminated, or conveyed in any way by the Producing Party, the [Requesting/]Disclosing Party or Witnesses except as provided herein." Neither State Farm nor the plaintiffs in Foltz could disclose covered documents without complying with the terms of this order.1
After four years of litigation, the parties agreed to a confidential settlement and requested that the court file be sealed. The district court granted the request to seal all documents in the court file except those that the parties desired to remain unsealed. On November 23, 1998, the court entered a final judgment of dismissal pursuant to the confidential settlement and a stipulated order releasing the court file to State Farm with the exception of all minute orders, the Second Amended Complaint, the Answers to the Second Amended Complaint, the Stipulation for Final Judgment, and the Final Judgment.2
On June 1, 1999, public interest groups Texas Watch, Consumer Action, and United Policyholders (collectively, the "Public Intervenors") moved to intervene and to make public the court records in the Foltz litigation and to gain access to the discovery material. On September 14, 1999, another set of intervenors, Tierney Adamson and Kevin Snead (collectively, the "Private Intervenors"), moved to intervene, to unseal the court records, and to modify the protective orders to gain access to discovery material.3 The Private Intervenors are engaged in collateral litigation in state courts against State Farm. According to their attorney, the plaintiffs in these collateral lawsuits make accusations against State Farm and CMR similar to those made in the Foltz litigation; they allege that State Farm conspired with CMR to wrongfully deny personal injury coverage under State Farm automobile policies by preparing fraudulent medical reviews.
The district court initially ruled on the intervenors' motions on December 14, 1999. The district court granted the motions to intervene, partially granted the motions to unseal, and denied the motion to modify the protective order. The district court held that the intervenors would not be given access to discovery materials, summary judgment materials, and other materials originally filed under seal because they contain confidential, third-party medical and personnel files as well as proprietary information of State Farm.
On December 29, 1999, the Private Intervenors filed a Motion to Clarify/Modify the district court's December 14, 1999 order. On January 17, 2000, the Public Intervenors filed a motion to set a deadline for State Farm to return the court file. On January 25, 2000, the district court entered an order partially allowing and partially denying the Private Intervenors' Motion to Clarify/Modify and dismissing the Public Intervenors' motion to set a deadline for returning the court file as moot because the file had been returned to the court. The district court further clarified which documents in the court file were to remain sealed in an order entered on February 17, 2000; the district court unsealed certain documents that previously had been sealed under the original order.
On February 24, 2000, the Private Intervenors filed a Notice of Appeal from the district court's order of January 25, 2000. On February 28, 2000, the district court filed a record of its order setting forth the document numbers of unsealed and sealed documents covered by its February 17, 2000 order. The Private Intervenors filed a notice of appeal from the February 17, 2000 order on March 13, 2000.
The Public Intervenors did not appeal from the district court's December 14, 1999, January 25, 2000, or February 17, 2000 orders. Instead, they waited until December 7, 2000 to file a Renewed Motion to Unseal Court Records or to Compel Showing of Confidentiality ("Renewed Motion"). The district court denied the Renewed Motion in an order dated January 9, 2001; it held that it did not have jurisdiction to rule on the motion and that, even if it had jurisdiction, the motion would be denied on the merits. The Public Intervenors filed a notice of appeal from this last order on January 31, 2001. This court consolidated for our review their appeal with the appeals by the Private Intervenors.
The Private Intervenors appeal from the district court's order dated January 25, 2000, which denied in part the motions to unseal and the motion to modify the protective order....
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