Sentinel Communications Co. v. Smith

• Decision Date: 03 July 1986
• Docket Number: No. 86-36,86-36
• Citation: 11 Fla. L. Weekly 1484,493 So.2d 1048
• Parties: 11 Fla. L. Weekly 1484, 13 Media L. Rep. 1775 SENTINEL COMMUNICATIONS COMPANY, Petitioner, v. The Honorable D.C. SMITH, etc., Respondent.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

Page 1048

493 So.2d 1048

11 Fla. L. Weekly 1484, 13 Media L. Rep. 1775

SENTINEL COMMUNICATIONS COMPANY, Petitioner, v. The Honorable D.C. SMITH, etc., Respondent.

No. 86-36.

District Court of Appeal of Florida,

Fifth District.

July 3, 1986.

Rehearing Denied Sept. 11, 1986.

William G. Mateer and Clay H. Coward, of Mateer & Harbert, P.A., Orlando, for petitioner.

E. Thom Rumberger, Sharon Lee Stedman, Michael R. Levin, and David R. Gemmer, of Rumberger, Kirk, Caldwell, Cabaniss & Burke, P.A., Orlando, for respondent Dominick J. Salfi.

Alan B. Robinson, Orlando, for Dominick J. Salfi, Jr., Dea Salfi Barrs and Don Salfi, respondents.

Mark P. Rabinowitz, of Heffernan & Rabinowitz, P.A., Altamonte Springs, for Dawn Salfi, respondent.

No appearance for The Honorable D.C. Smith, Retired Circuit Judge.

COWART, Judge.

This case involves the rights of the parties, and children of the parties, to have the court records in a domestic relations case sealed and kept sealed as against the desire of a newspaper to have the court records unsealed and the contents published.

From time immemorial in Florida, and elsewhere, trial judges, particularly juvenile judges and chancery judges sitting in domestic relations cases, have had, and regularly exercised, an inherent judicial discretion to hear certain civil cases in chambers from which the public is excluded and to seal court records in civil cases in the interests of the rights of privacy of the litigants and witnesses and other third parties. It is an essential governmental function to provide citizens with an impartial forum in which they may present and resolve their private disputes and controversies. In order to fairly resolve many such private controversies it is necessary for the litigants and witnesses to assert and admit embarrassing intimate details of the private lives of the litigants and of innocent third persons. If this cannot be done without the deterrence of unwanted publicity the legal system cannot meet the basic need for which it is established. While citizens collectively as the general public have a right to know how the legal system is functioning--so that the system can be altered and reformed--neither the general public nor the press has a legitimate right to intrude into a long closed court case in order to learn, publish, and sell embarrassing assertions as to the intimate details of an individual citizen's private life, merely because the assertions and details have been disclosed in a judicial forum in a case involving private civil litigation to which the general public--the State--is not a party.

The case here is a usual domestic relations case. Court records of the case were sealed from public view and inspection by the original trial judge in a normal manner at the behest of one or more of the parties. That action was recognized as proper, and was ratified by the successor trial judge entering the final judgment in the case. Those discretionary judicial acts were not appealed and are presumed in law to be correct. There is absolutely no basis in the record in this case for considering, concluding, or holding that those two trial judges abused their judicial discretion in originally sealing the court records in this case.

Long after the final judgment was entered in the domestic relations case a newspaper filed a motion to intervene as a party in the closed case and also filed a motion to unseal the court case file. The same trial judge who entered the final judgment heard and considered the newspaper's motion to unseal the domestic relations court file. After the newspaper was duly given an opportunity to present evidence and legal argument, the trial court, with knowledge of the contents of the sealed court file, denied the newspaper's motion and the newspaper seeks review in this court under Florida Rule of Appellate Procedure 9.100(d).

Certainly there can be real conflicts between the public's right of access to judicial proceedings and records, for the legitimate purpose of ascertaining if the judicial system is working properly, and the legitimate rights of every natural person to be let alone, with his private life and affairs free from intrusion by the government, the public at large, and the press. Newspapers have no greater or different right of access to court proceedings and court records than does the public in general, and the public's right to know is not all encompassing or absolute. In this case, as in all cases, the burden is on the movant, the newspaper here, to demonstrate to the trial court that the original order sealing the court records was legally in error, or if the original sealing was correct, to demonstrate that there has been such a substantial, material change in circumstances that under law it is error to keep the court records sealed. No such showing was made in this case. On this review the burden is on the petitioner to demonstrate that the trial judge has abused his discretion. This has not been done.

The fact that the husband-father in the domestic relations case was, and is, a judge does not distinguish this case from all other similar cases. People get married and divorced, not as judges, doctors, lawyers, editors, preachers, policemen, plumbers, plasterers, or painters, but as natural human beings just as all other citizens. The husband-father and the wife-mother and their children in this case have, and should have, the same rights in domestic relation litigation as every other citizen--no more and no less. If the privacy rights ¹ of the litigants and third persons in this case are not recognized and respected, then no citizen has any right of privacy in private litigation.

PETITION FOR REVIEW CONSIDERED; ORDER REVIEWED AFFIRMED.

DAUKSCH, J., concurs and concurs specially with opinion.

SHARP, J., dissents with opinion.

DAUKSCH, Judge, concurring specially:

I concur with the ruling and sentiments expressed by Judge Cowart and write only to add a thought and answer the dissent.

In answering the dissent, I point out that her proposal to remand the case for further proceedings is not in keeping with due process requirements. Petitioner was given an opportunity to present evidence at the hearing to unseal the file and specifically declined to present any evidence. This is so even though the respondent, Salfi, had presented evidence from Sara Roen, a Sentinel reporter who testified about her having been aware of the closure for over a year. Of course the Sentinel could have called any other witnesses.

Whether to seal or unseal a court file is a balancing test. I agree with both Judge Cowart and Judge Sharp in that regard. The circuit court judge who denied the request to unseal the file, and whose order we now review, was also aware of that balancing test. In his ruling he said he had reviewed the sealed court file in camera and was also aware of the entire case between the divorcing parties because he had been the trial judge in the case after the first trial judge left. He remarked that the case was before him for a protracted period of time and that he found it necessary to urge the parties to either proceed with their case or dismiss it. He also said the case ended with no testimony having been taken which supported any of the matters which the petitioner now seeks to have made public. The trial judge said that Mrs. Salfi had made certain allegations regarding family members and their problems which were never substantiated by any evidence.

In face of these statements, and after they were made at the hearing, the petitioner still declined to present any evidence to tip the balance toward its side. No evidence whatsoever was adduced by petitioner regarding the "rights and interests of the public and the press". In State ex rel Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. McIntosh, 340 So.2d 904 (Fla.1977), it was said

In determining restrictions to be placed upon access to judicial proceedings, the court must balance the rights and interests of the parties to litigation with those of the public and press.

McIntosh at 908.

The petitioner was given its chance to present evidence in support of its petition; it declined or failed to do so. There is no legal basis to permit a litigant, even a newspaper, a second chance to try to prove its case.

SHARP, Judge, dissenting.

I respectfully dissent because in my view the majority opinion is contrary to the law as it has developed in Florida. I do not think the trial judge's decision to keep the file sealed was based on an adequate record, and I would remand for further proceedings.

This case commenced in our court when the Sentinel Communications Company petitioned for review of a trial court's order which refused to unseal judicial records in a dissolution proceeding. The basis for our jurisdiction is Appellate Rule 9.100(d)(1). It provides for appellate review of orders which exclude "the press or public from access to any proceeding, any part of a proceeding, or any judicial records...."

The manner in which this case arrived in our court is somewhat unusual, although the factual background is not. In July of 1982, Judge Salfi, a circuit judge who was presiding in the Eighteenth Judicial Circuit, encountered marital difficulties. He and his wife filed petitions for dissolution, and the case was assigned outside of the circuit to Judge G. Kendall Sharp in Vero Beach. Upon Judge Salfi's motion, Judge Sharp entered an order dated October 26, 1983, which sealed the file accumulating after that date. He made a finding that closure was necessary to protect the interests of the Salfis' minor children, and to protect the fair trial rights of the litigants. It is not clear from the record that Judge Sharp heard any testimony or evidence prior to sealing the file, but no notice of intent to close the file was given to the Sentinel or to any other member of the press.

Soon thereafter, Judge Sharp ascended to the federal bench, and the Salfi case was...