Ark. Teacher Ret. Sys. v. State St. Bank & Trust Co.

391 F. Supp. 3d 167
District Court, District of Columbia·Decided May 16, 2018·No. C.A. No. 11-10230-MLW; C.A. No. 11-12049-MLW; C.A. No. 12-11698-MLW·Published

Opinion

WOLF, D.J.

On March 8, 2017, the court appointed Retired United States District Judge Gerald Rosen as a Master to investigate and submit a Report and Recommendation concerning issues relating to the court's award of more than $75,000,000 in attorneys' fees in this Class Action to counsel for the plaintiff class (the "Lawyers"). In its October 24, 2017 Order, the court wrote:

The Master has informed the court that he has entered a limited protective order concerning the confidentiality of certain information he has received in discovery and informed the [Lawyers] that an opportunity would be provided for them to propose redactions to the Report and Recommendation which will be filed for the public record. In view of the foregoing, the court is modifying the March 8, 2017 Order to provide that: the Master shall file his Report and Recommendation with the court under seal; the court will provide the Report and Recommendation to the [Lawyers], under seal; and the court will establish schedules for proposed redactions and objections.

Docket No. 208 at 3. The March 29, 2017 Limited Protective Order in its most pertinent part provides that the production of documents requested by the Master would not constitute a waiver of any attorney-client privilege or any other privilege. See Docket No. 191, ¶1.

On May 14, 2018, the Master filed his Report and Recommendation, an Executive Summary of it, and referenced exhibits in both printed and electronic form.1

*169Pursuant to the October 24, 2017 Order, the court has temporarily sealed those submissions to provide the Lawyers an opportunity to review them and propose redactions. The court intends to decide whether any proposed redactions are justified. The court may, however, refer any redaction issues to the Master for a Report and Recommendation. The court may also, instead, ask the Master, or his counsel, to respond to any questionable requests for redactions.

In proposing redactions, the Lawyers shall bear in mind that:

In Nixon v. Warner Communications, Inc., 435 U.S. 589, 98 S.Ct. 1306, 55 L.Ed.2d 570 (1978), the Supreme Court acknowledged that "the courts of this country recognize a general right to inspect and copy public records and documents, including judicial records and documents." Id. at 597, 98 S.Ct. 1306 (footnotes omitted). The privilege extends, in the first instance, to "materials on which a court relies in determining the litigants' substantive rights." Anderson v. Cryovac, Inc., 805 F.2d 1, 13 (1st Cir.1986).

F.T.C. v. Standard Fin. Mgmt. Corp., 830 F.2d 404, 408 (1st Cir. 1987) ; see also United States v. Kravetz, 706 F.3d 47, 52, 54 (1st Cir. 2013) ; Siedle v. Putnam Investments, Inc., 147 F.3d 7, 9 (1st Cir. 1998). "[T]he public's right to inspect such records is not absolute." Standard Fin. Mgmt. Corp., 830 F.2d at 410. However, "only the most compelling reasons can justify non-disclosure of judicial records." Id. (quotation marks and citations omitted).

A properly invoked attorney-client privilege may be sufficient to overcome the presumption of public access to information which is contained in judicial records. See Siedle, 147 F.3d at 9-10. In addition "privacy rights of participants and third parties are among those interests which, in appropriate cases, can limit the presumptive right of access to judicial records." Standard Fin. Mgmt. Corp., 830 F.2d at 411 (citations omitted); see also Kravetz, 706 F.3d at 61-4. "[W]here the public's right of access competes with privacy rights, it is proper for the district court, after weighing the competing interests, to edit and redact a judicial document in order to allow access to appropriate portions of the document." Id. at 62.

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Ark. Teacher Ret. Sys. v. State St. Bank & Trust Co., 391 F. Supp. 3d 167 (D.D.C. 2018).

391 F. Supp. 3d 167 (Ark. Teacher Ret. Sys. v. State St. Bank & Trust Co.) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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