Latest / The Vault: The Epstein Files / Judge Rakoff Makes A Ruling On Unsealed Exhibits In The USVI/JP Morgan/Survivor Lawsuit (Part 1)

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Judge Rakoff Makes A Ruling On Unsealed Exhibits In The USVI/JP Morgan/Survivor Lawsuit (Part 1) · The Vault: The Epstein Files

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  Speaker 1: What's up, everyone, and welcome back to the Epstein Chronicles.
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  In today's episode, we're going to take a look at
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  the Judge Raycoff order in regards to the New York
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  Times motion that they filed as a non party entity
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  to unseal five different exhibits that were filed in the
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  usvii's lawsuit with JP Morgan and the Epstein Survivors Case
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  Number twenty two Dash CV DASH one zero zero one
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  nine Opinion and order Jed S. Ray Cooff before the
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  Court is a motion of a non party, the New
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  York Times to unseal five exhibits that were filed in
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  the above captioned actions. The exhibits contain excerpts of the
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  deposition of plaintiff chain do Number one. Three of the
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  exhibits were filed in connection with summary judgment briefing in
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  the underlying actions and all contain the same portion of
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  dose deposition related to her alleged non consensual interactions with
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  Jess Staley. The other two exhibits were filed in connection
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  with plaintiff's motion for class certification and contain a different
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  portion of Doe's deposition where she recounts how she was
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  initially recruited by Jeffrey Epstein. During the course of the litigation,
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  the court granted the class certification motion, but never ruled
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  on the summary judgment motions because the case settled while
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  the motions were pending. The Times argues that common law
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  and First Amendment right of access to court filing's mandate unsealing.
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  Do opposes unsealing all five exhibits, arguing that doing so
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  would risk revealing her identity and would force her to
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  relive her traumatic experiences. Plaintiff Government of the United States
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  Virgin Islands opposes unsealing on similar grounds. Staley opposes unsealing
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  only the summary judgment transcripts, arguing they are not judicial
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  documents because the court never ruled on the motion and
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  that he is in his own life privacy interest in
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  keeping those untested allegations sealed. For the reasons set forth below,
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  the Court grants in part and denies in or the
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  Times motion one the legal standard. Federal courts employ two
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  related but distinct presumptions in favor of the public access
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  to court proceedings and records, a strong form rooted in
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  the First Amendment and a slightly weak reform based in
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  federal common law. Both presumptions follow a three step analysis.
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  With their first step in common the court must first
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  determine whether the filings are judicial documents, as only judicial
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  documents are subject to a presumptive right of public access,
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  whether on common law or First Amendment grounds. At the
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  second step of the first Amendment analysis, documents must satisfy
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  one of two tests. Under one test, the right of
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  access applies to documents that have historically been open to
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  the press and general public, and public access to those
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  documents plays a significant positive role in the functioning of
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  the particular process in question. Alternatively, the second approach considers
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  the extent to which the judicial documents are derived from
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  or necessary corollary of the capacity to attend the relevant proceedings.
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  If either test is satisfied, the First Amendment right attaches
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  and ceiling of the documents may be justified only with
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  specific on the record findings that ceiling is necessary to
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  preserve higher values, and only if the ceialing order is
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  narrowly tailored to achieve that aim. At the second step
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  of the common law right of access, the court must
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  determine the weight of the presumption by assessing the role
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  of the material at issue in the exercise of the
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  Article three judicial power and the resultant value of such
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  information to those monitoring the federal courts. Then, after determining
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  the weight of the presumption of access, the court must
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  balance competing considerations against disclosure. As compared to the common
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  law right of access. The First Amendment right of access
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  is stronger and can only be overcome under more stringent
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  circumstances than the common law presumption first Amendment right as
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  more string Accordingly, when at the second step a court
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  finds the First Amendment right attaches, it need not engage
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  in such a common law analysis, because in any case
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  where the First Amendment presumption of access is overcome, so
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  will the common law presumption. To the discussion, the exhibits
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  the time seeks to one sealer divided into two categories.
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  A the summary judgment papers for the motion mooted by
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  settlement and B the filings attached to the motion for
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  class certification granted by the court. Each category is discussed
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  in turn. A exhibits attached to the motion for some
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  rey judgment one step one judicial document status. As noted,
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  the threshold requirement for the First Amendment of common law
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  right of access to apply is that the item under
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  a scrutiny must constitute a judicial document. Staley argues that
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  the summary judgment transcripts do not satisfy this requirement because
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  the case settled while the summary judgment motions were pending
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  and before the court ever ruled on the matters. See
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  Daily Opposition Docket to ninety three at one in three.
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  To be a judicial document, an item must be relevant
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  to the performance of the judicial function and useful in
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  the judicial process. In general, documents filed with the court
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  that asks the Court to grant or reject some relief,
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  such as pleadings in some rejudgment papers, satisfy the test,
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  but the mere filing of a paper or a document
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  with the court is insufficient to render that paper a
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  judicial document subject to the right of public access. The
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  Second Circuit has held that some rejudgment papers qualify as
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  judicial documents at least as a general matter. See Lugosh
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  four to thirty five ft three d at one twenty one,
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  holding that document submitted to a court for its consideration
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  in a sumary judgment motion are as a matter of law,
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  judicial documents, even though the summary judgment motion was still
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  pending and had not yet been ruled on. Brown versus Maxwell,
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  nine twenty nine ft three d forty one forty five
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  two D to xix out to nineteen, finding denial of
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  motion for some rejudgment does not abrogate judicial document status
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  even when documents were not relied upon in ruling. Furthermore,
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  the Second Circuit is held, at least with respect to
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  pleadings that were filed under seal, the fact that a
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  suit is ultimately settled without a judgment on the merits
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  does not impair judicial record status. Bernstein versus Bernstein, Littowitz
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  Berger Engrossman, LLP. Eight fourteen ft three dter one thirty
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  two one forty Second Circuit, twenty sixteen. However, the Second
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  Circuit has not addressed the question of whether the settlement
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  of a case while the summary judgment motion is pending
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  impacts the judicial document status of those moving papers. Other
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  courts addressed the question have split on the issue. The
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  Fourth Circuit has recently held that papers filed with the
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  summary judgment motion continue to be judicial documents even where
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  the case settles before the motion is ruled on. So
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  United States versus XR. L Oberg for AIX Schnell Neet Incorporated.
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  One oh five four f one sixty one one seventy three,
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  Fourth Circuit, twenty twenty four. District courts in the Second
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  Circuit that have considered the issue have come out different ways.
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  Compare Roberts versus Maxwell, twenty twenty WL one three three
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  five seven zero at two four, SDN Y, January thirteenth,
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  twenty twenty. Undecided motions and the papers associated with them
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  are not judicial documents since they are not part of
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  the live controversy to which the Article three judicial power
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  can extend. In IBM Arbitration Agreement Litigation twenty twenty two,
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  WL THREEZH four three two two zero at two, SDN Y,
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  August two, twenty twenty two, some rejudgment filing mooted by
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  granting prior motion to dismiss are not judicial documents since
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  they have no tendency or ability to influence this Court's
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  ruling on the motion to dismiss. Alterations added with Loan
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  versus IBM twenty twenty two, WL three three five nine
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  seven three seven at four, SDN Y, August fifteenth, twenty
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  twenty two, arguing that Maxwell and properly conflates the first
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  two steps of the right to access analysis and the
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  summary judgment filings for mooted motions are judicial documents because
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  of potential relevancy to judicial function. After carefully considering these
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  conflicting precedents, this Court concludes that treating the documents here
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  at issue as judicial documents is the correct approach and
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  more consistent with the Second Circuit precedent, although in a
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  context different from some rejudgment. The Second Circuit has held
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  that an item may be considered a judicial document irrespective
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  of whether any court is actually relied on the document
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  in issuing a ruling. The inquiry is only whether the
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  documents are relevant to the performance of the judicial function,
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  not whether they were relied upon. The Second Circuit has
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  also emphasized the relevancy in this context is measured by potential,
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  not actual effect see Idea at forty five. A document
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  is thus relevant to the performance of the judicial function
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  if it would reasonably have the tendency to influence a
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  district court's ruling on a motion or in the exercise
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  of its supervisory powers, without regard to which way the
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  court ultimately rules, or whether the document ultimately in fact
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  influences the court's decision. Since only potential and not actual
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  reliance is required for judicial document status. The fact that
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  a summary judgment motion is never ruled on prior to
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  settlement does not affect the judicial document status of exhibits
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  filed in connection therewith cases that hold the contrary reason
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  that even if the items may have been judicial documents
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  when filed, they lose this status once a settlement has
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  taken place. This is because the Article three judicial power
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  only extends to actual controversies arising between adverse litigants, but
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  once a case settles, no such controversy exists. Maxwell twenty
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  twenty WL three five seven zero at two. These cases
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  for the reason that whatever need there may have been
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  to oversee the function of the judicial power evaporates once
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  a case settles, and no future ruling is possible, such
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  that the reason for the right of access dissipates as well. However,
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  this first argument conflates the first two steps of the
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  public Right to Access framework Loan twenty twenty two w
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  L three thirty five nine seven three seven at four.
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  Second circuit precedent suggests the presence of a live controversy
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  only speaks to the weight of the presumption, rather than
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  whether the documents are judicial documents. In the first place,
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  a contrary rule cannot be squared with the Second Circuit's
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  decision in Bernstein, which found that sealed pleadings remain judicial
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  documents even though the case was mooted by settlement before
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  any ruling on a motion to dismiss. The decision in
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  Bernstein follows from the fact that the purpose of the
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  right of access is broader than just monitoring actual decision
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  The judicial monitoring function that the presumption serves encompasses other interests,
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  such as the right of the public to discern the
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  prevalence of certain types of cases, the nature of the
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  parties to particular kinds of actions, information about the settlement
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  rates in different areas of law, and the types of
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  materials that are likely to be sealed. Insights into the
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  judicial process are essential to the public's understanding of and
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  the ability to monitor the functioning of the judiciary, even
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  though no actual or potential judicial decision making is involved.
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  These other interests are similarly implicated by documents attached to
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  a mooted summary judgment motion. Moreover, if settlement vitiated judicial
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  document status, an oddity would arise in light of the
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  Second Circuit's decision in Lugosh. In Lugosh, the Court held
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  that filing attached to motions for some rejudgment are judicial
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  documents and publicly accessible even when the motion is still pending.
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  If the position proposed by stalely or correct, such filings
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  would retrospectively lose judicial document status and become inaccessible at
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  any moment the case settled before the ruling. Since the
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  public would never know which cases may settle ahead of time,
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  this would incentivize filing a motion to unseal the moment
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  a motion for some rejudgment is filed, undesirably, increasing burdens
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  on courts to address such motions while briefing is ongoing.
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  And in a great number of cases, the motion to
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  unseal may be filed out of fear that the opportunity
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  to do so later would be lost, rather than any
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  ultimate desire for the sealed materials. Thus, for the foregoing reasons,
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  the Court concludes the deposition excerpts here in question constitute
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  judicial documents. All right, we're going to wrap up right here,
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  and in the next episode we're going to pick up
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  with two step two First Amendment right of access. All
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  the information that goes with this episode can be found
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  in the description box.