United States v. Microsoft Corp.

165 F.3d 952, 334 U.S. App. D.C. 165, 42 Fed. R. Serv. 3d 1076, 27 Media L. Rep. (BNA) 1300, 1999 U.S. App. LEXIS 1161, 1999 WL 34827
CourtCourt of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit
DecidedJanuary 29, 1999
Docket17-1181
StatusPublished
Cited by41 cases

This text of 165 F.3d 952 (United States v. Microsoft Corp.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Microsoft Corp., 165 F.3d 952, 334 U.S. App. D.C. 165, 42 Fed. R. Serv. 3d 1076, 27 Media L. Rep. (BNA) 1300, 1999 U.S. App. LEXIS 1161, 1999 WL 34827 (D.C. Cir. 1999).

Opinion

Opinion for the court filed by Circuit Judge GINSBURG.

GINSBURG, Circuit Judge:

The Publicity in Taking Evidence Act of 1913 provides that depositions of witnesses for use in any suit in equity brought by the Government under the Sherman Act “shall be open to the public as freely as are'trials in open court.” 15 U.S.C. § 30. Microsoft Corporation, the defendant in such an antitrust case, appeals the district court’s order requiring the depositions in this case to be taken in public, subject to provisions for the protection of trade secrets and other confidential business information. Microsoft argues that the “depositions” referred to in the statute are not the depositions known today under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, namely, interrogations undertaken for the purpose of pretrial discovery. In the alternative, Microsoft argues that § 30 conflicts with and is superseded by the standard for granting a protective order under Rule 26(c).

We hold that although § 30 apparently was rendered an anachronism by the Federal Rules in 1938, the statute does not conflict with, and hence is not superseded by Rule 26(c). Accordingly, we are constrained to enforce the statute by its terms and to apply it to the depositions taken in this case. We therefore affirm the judgment of the district court.

I. Background

In May, 1998 the United States filed a civil antitrust action in the district court charging Microsoft with various violations of the Sherman Act. See 15 U.S.C. §§ 1 & 2. The case was consolidated with a similar suit brought by 20 States and the District of Columbia, and the district court set the case on an expedited path to trial.

In order to protect the trade secrets and other confidential business information both of Microsoft and of third parties that might testify or otherwise provide information in the case, the parties agreed to and the district court entered a protective order governing discovery. See FED.R.CrvJP. 26(c) (authorizing entry of protective order upon showing of “good cause”). Under that protective order deposition transcripts were to be treated as confidential for five days following the deponent’s receipt of the transcript, during which time the deponent might designate portions of his or her testimony confidential. After this five-day period the transcripts presumably would be made available to the public in redacted form, although the order does not expressly so state.

In August, 1998 the Government gave notice that it would take the depositions of several Microsoft employees, including its Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, William Gates III. The New York Times Company thereupon urged the district court to grant its pending motion to intervene “for the limited purpose of enforcing its and the public’s rights of access to proceedings and the record herein.” (Five other news organizations had joined in The Times’s motion to intervene; we shall refer to the six collectively as “The Times.”) In renewing its motion The Times sought access to the depositions *954 specifically pursuant to the Publicity in Taking Evidence Act of 1913, 15 U.S.C. § 30, a little-known and even less used statute that provides in its entirety:

In the taking of depositions of witnesses for use in any suit in equity brought by the United States under sections 1 to 7 of [Title 15, United States Code], and in the hearings before any examiner or special master appointed to take testimony therein, the proceedings shall be open to the public as freely as are trials in open court; and no order excluding the public from attendance on any such proceedings shall be valid or enforceable.

The district court granted The Times’s motion to intervene and pursuant to § 30 ordered “that intervenors and all other members of the public shall be admitted to all depositions to be taken henceforth in this action ... to the extent space is reasonably available to accommodate them consistent with public safety and order.” The court stayed all depositions in the ease pending entry of “an agreed form of order establishing a protocol for affording access for inter-venors and other members of the public to pretrial depositions which comports with 15 U.S.C. § 30, but which also protects the interests of the parties and of third-party deponents in preventing unnecessary disclosure of trade secrets or other confidential information.”

Microsoft immediately moved for a stay of this order, which the district court denied. Microsoft then filed an interlocutory appeal and moved this court for a stay of the order pending appeal. We granted the stay; if The Times prevails, we said, then “the text and videotape of a private deposition can then be disclosed.” Depositions resumed under the terms of the original protective order, and Mr. Gates was duly deposed for three days in a private, videotaped session. The Government joins The Times on this appeal in arguing that § 30 requires that the depositions be made public.

II. Analysis

As mentioned, Microsoft argues first that the term “depositions” as used in 15 U.S.C. § 30 does not include depositions taken for the purpose of pretrial discovery. If such depositions are covered by § 30, then Microsoft argues in the alternative that the statute conflicts with and, pursuant to the Rules Enabling Act, 28 U.S.C. § 2072(b), yields to the standard for granting a protective order in Rule 26(c).

A. The Meaning of “Deposition” in the Act of 1913

Microsoft contends first that the term “deposition” as used by the Congress in 1913 had a completely different meaning than it has today, indeed that § 30 cannot have been intended to apply to pretrial discovery depositions because they were unknown in 1913. In modern federal practice, of course, the use of pretrial depositions for the discovery of evidence is the norm. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 26(b)(1) (authorizing depositions in order to discover information that may or may not be admissible at trial but is “reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence”). Microsoft claims, however, that before the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure became effective in 1938, depositions were solely a means of preserving proof, or testimony, for possible use by the court if the witness were to die or be otherwise unavailable at the trial; any discovery that might have resulted from taking a deposition “was only accidental and incidental.” See CHARLES A. WRIGHT ET AL., 8 FEDERAL PRACTICE and Procedure 2d § 2002, at 52 (1994).

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165 F.3d 952, 334 U.S. App. D.C. 165, 42 Fed. R. Serv. 3d 1076, 27 Media L. Rep. (BNA) 1300, 1999 U.S. App. LEXIS 1161, 1999 WL 34827, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-microsoft-corp-cadc-1999.