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Judge Petitioned To Unseal SCO-IBM Court Records
An anonymous reader writes "Groklaw is reporting that Maureen O'Gara has applied to the judge to open all and any filings or transcipts that till now have been sealed by the Utah district court hearing the SCO Group's $5 billion suit against IBM. Groklaw's Pamela Jones notes that 'O'Gara believes the public can't understand the case, because of the sealing' and some of the Groklaw.net members seem to agree that, that since in the U.S. any citizen has a right to review court records in order to monitor the performance of a judge, that O'Gara's 'motion to intervene' will most likely succeed." An anonymous reader writes that Jones last night said of the request "that she is 'of two minds' about the filing: 'I'm crazy wild to read everything. But on the other hand, the court and the parties wouldn't seal things without a reason that seems good to them. I believe in privacy, personally, and I don't think the public has a "right" to know everything.' The legal filing to unseal everything has not yet become available via Pacer."
The interest of justice is a sufficient incentive to maintain the ability to seal certain court filings by participants in a trial. Reductio ad absurdum: what happens if the provision for sealed documents is done away with? Individuals and companies involved in a suit will be *more likely* to attempt to hide evidence since its disclosure could be damaging to them if made public. The whole idea of discovery in a civil trial is to allow pertinent documents to be made available to the other side. If public disclosure of a document could cost a company or an individual much more than the value of the suit, it is highly likely that said document will conveniently disappear.
In current practice, the parties to a civil suit and the court agree to rules defining what may be kept confidential and then the rules are applied to various filings. Requests to seal are subject to challenge by the other party and the filing party is free to file a redacted version of a document without the portions that are subject to being sealed (e.g., leave out the formula for the "secret sauce" but leave in the rules for disclosing it, licensing it, etc.). This works for me.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
that's bullshit. my tax dollars hard at work and yet i'm not able to see what's going on?
First, IANAL.
There has to be a balance. If parties believe that certain sensitive details, particularly trade secrets, will not be protected, then they are discouraged from using the courts as a method to remedy differences. That creates a barrier to access to the justice system.
Every time there's an anti-immigrant proposition in California where schools or hospitals or whatever are required to report illegal immigrants, the opposition's argument in debate and court is that creates a barrier to access to vital services.
You'll hear it again when someone tries to cap lawyer's contingency fees, set up a loser-pays law, etc. It creates a barrier to access for aggrieved parties who can't afford to risk their life savings on a law suit against a megacorporation.
None of this means immigrants couldn't go to the doctor or poor people couldn't go to court, but it does mean that it would create such risks as to discourage them from availing themselves of our medical system or justice system when they really need it most.
Providing reasonable access is a big thing in the American consciousness. It's an egalitarian concept since most of the laws that create barriers to access create them for the poor and disenfranchised.
But let's also consider the defendant in a trial too. If a defendant's proprietary information is exposed in discovery, does the public have a right to that information? The defendant was dragged into court, and now they'll lose valuable IP even if they eventually win? It wouldn't be moral, ethical, or "justice" if that happened.
OTOH, high profile cases that end in settlements where neither party admits fault and the details of the settlement are sealed... RRRGGGHHH! Those bug the heck out of me. But if the settlement is out of court and both parties drop their claim, the public doesn't really have a right to know anymore as it's become a private matter.
- Greg
Start a happiness pandemic
If you've kept up with GrokLaw PJ has talked about the OSRM situation. She dislikes what SCO is doing in the ethical/moral sense, she's not a techie. Since she left OSRM she's had many job offers and I recall she recently took one. PJ is a very good journalist and solid paralegal. I wish Groklaw had been around during the M$ anti-trust case.
Groklaw accused Maureen O'Gara of lying about the court proceedings a while back, so I guess now we'll find out what really happened.
More specifically, Pam Jones on Groklaw pointed out that what Maureen O'Gara said happened either (a) did not happen, or (b) happened behind a screen so that no one in the audience could see it, and that (c) the transcript was sealed, so that O'Gara could not have found out what was said from the transcript. Finally, (d) what O'Gara says happened contradicts other things that the audience did see.
This does not mean that O'Gara was necessarily wrong, but it does mean that either the other people in the audience weren't paying atention, or O'Gara was provided with information that she shouldn't have been provided with, or O'Gara simply made it up.
Your second paragraph is taken completely out of context. Jones is, and says so, happy about seeing more documents become unsealed:
What Pam was laughing at was the "extra" information in the request that the judge is likely not to take very well. Such as telling the judge, in the request, what the significance of the case is.
Jerry
Groklaw appears to be slow, so here's relevant portions of the article you linked to:
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A Bit of the Blarney -- or Worse? -- About "Lost" Code
Saturday, October 23 2004 @ 03:38 PM EDT
It used to be funny pointing out mistakes in reporters' stories.
But when a reporter prints something that isn't just misinformed but hurtfully inaccurate, I think it's more serious. As you likely know, Maureen O'Gara printed a story about what allegedly was said in the last court hearing between IBM and SCO. That, in and of itself, is ethically problematic, to me, since the court ordered the transcript sealed. The source of her "information" would be whom, would you guess?
It wouldn't surprise me if IBM follows up on that aspect of the matter. I would.
Groklaw had eyewitnesses at the hearing. None of them reports seeing Ms. O'Gara there. Furthermore, none of them heard what she "reports" about IBM supposedly claiming not to be able to find code it was supposed to turn over. Let me repeat that. IBM never said anything like that, according to our eyewitnesses. I absolutely can tell you that the O'Gara story does not match what they heard. They also told me that the screen was placed in such a way that no one in the audience could see it. How then does Ms. O'Gara know what was shown on the screen?
Nor does it make any sense. For starters, IBM said at the hearing that they have produced all the code they have been ordered to produce to date. They have produced all released versions of AIX which they were told to turn over. That isn't even in dispute. The hearing was about whether IBM should now be required to produce more code, now that SCO couldn't find any infringing code in the millions of lines it already received. The judge hasn't decided that issue. Second, SCO's Third Amended Complaint has not yet, to my knowledge, been accepted by the court. Even if we posit that it will be, IBM has not yet even answered it, let alone been found in violation of anything having to do with it or even been accused of such.
I therefore conclude that Ms. O'Gara has been provided with some misinformation, or she has decided to spread a bit of the Blarney sua sponte.
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like others have mentioned, this is a civil case. it's a contract dispute between 2 privately held companies. why does this concern the public? if i take someone to civil court because they owe me money and refuse to pay, why are the details of the case, etc., any business of the publics? kinda seems like an invasion of privacy to me.
Slashdot Subscribers get to see stories "In the mysterious future", before non-subscribers. No one can post to it until the story goes live. It is entirely possible that groklaw was /.ed by subscribers before the story went "live".
"...the court and the parties wouldn't seal things without a reason that seems good to them."
/.
LOL. You're kidding, right? Companies in court seal things almost by reflex. Their default behavior is "seal everything unless it would look so dumb that the judge would get mad at us". They even seal useless, unimportant stuff on the theory that it might have once been shelved near something proprietary.
--an AC on
"SCO has been chomping at the bit to release this letter."
Champing, not chomping. Humans chomp, horses champ.
It's "champing at the bit."
Champ \Champ\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Champed; p. pr. & vb. n.
Champing.] [Prob, of Scand. orgin; cf. dial. Sw. k["a]msa
to chew with difficulty, champ; but cf. also OF. champier,
champeyer, champoyer, to graze in fields, fr. F. champ field,
fr. L. campus. Cf. Camp.]
1. To bite with repeated action of the teeth so as to be
heard.
Foamed and champed the golden bit. --Dryden.
2. To bite into small pieces; to crunch. --Steele.
"I might have made a tactical error in not going to a physician for 20 years." -- Warren Zevon
The notion of corporate personhood and a debate of the merits thereof is the predominant theme of this book (and, presumably the movie aswell, but I'm more of a reader myself) and is dealt with in some depth.
It makes some very interesting points:
I won't list any more examples here, but it's a very thorough, well-written, in-depth discussion, and far from the radical leftie polemic which you might think it would be. Much harder to poke holes in than Michael Moore, anyway.
http://instantbadger.blogspot.com