VIRGINIA GIUFFRE v. GHISLAINE MAXWELL
Nos. 24-182-cv(L), 24-203-cv(CON)
United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
JULY 23, 2025
AUGUST TERM 2024; SUBMITTED: APRIL 14, 2025; USDC SDNY DOCUMENT ELECTRONICALLY FILED DOC #: DATE FILED: Jul 23, 2025
Before: CABRANES, RAGGI, and PÉREZ, Circuit Judges.
Defendant Maxwell argues that this court is without jurisdiction to review the first of these arguments, which challenges the district court‘s orders of December 16, 2019, and January 13, 2020, because timely notices of appeal were not filed therefrom. In any event, she submits that the district court did not err in any of the respects argued on this appeal.
This court concludes that the December 2019 and January 2020 Orders were not final orders and, thus, that this court has jurisdiction to review all
AFFIRMED IN PART, VACATED IN PART, AND REMANDED.
Sigrid S. McCawley, Boies Schiller Flexner LLP, Fort Lauderdale, FL, for Plaintiff-Appellant.
Christine N. Walz, Scott D. Ponce, Cynthia A. Gierhart, Holland & Knight LLP, New York, NY, Miami, FL, Washington, D.C., for Intervenors-Appellants.
Adam Mueller, Haddon, Morgan & Foreman, P.C., Denver, CO, for Defendant-Appellee.
Michael G. McGovern, Ropes & Gray LLP, New York, NY, for Amicus Curiae John Doe 133, in support of Defendant-Appellee.
PER CURIAM:
Following this court‘s remand in Brown v. Maxwell (“Maxwell I“), 929 F.3d 41 (2d Cir. 2019), the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Loretta A. Preska, Judge) reviewed hundreds of sealed documents in this now-settled defamation action and, after considering the privacy interests of more than a hundred third-parties, issued a series of orders directing that a large number of the documents be unsealed either in whole or in part.1 Plaintiff Virginia Giuffre, now deceased, and Intervenors the Miami Herald Media Company and Miami Herald reporter Julie Brown (jointly, the ”Herald“) appeal from those parts of the district court‘s orders declining to unseal certain documents.2 They submit that the district court
Defendant Maxwell argues that this court is without jurisdiction to review Appellants’ challenges to the district court‘s orders of December 16, 2019, and January 19, 2020, as no timely appeal was taken from either order. See Order, Giuffre v. Maxwell, No. 15-cv-7433 (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 16, 2019) (the “December 2019 Order“); Giuffre v. Maxwell, No. 15-cv-7433, 2020 WL 133570 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 13, 2020) (the “January 2020 Order“). In any event, Maxwell submits that the district court did not err in any of the respects argued on this appeal.
BACKGROUND
This appeal has its origins in a 2015 defamation action brought in the Southern District of New York by plaintiff Virginia Giuffre, a victim of sexual trafficking by financier Jeffrey Epstein. Giuffre charged defendant Ghislaine Maxwell, an Epstein associate, with defaming her by publicly calling her statements implicating Maxwell in Epstein‘s trafficking “obvious
Both before and after closure of Giuffre‘s defamation action against Maxwell, various third-parties sought to intervene to seek the unsealing of numerous documents filed in that case. Among these parties was the Herald, which so moved on April 6, 2018. The district court allowed most third-parties (including the Herald) to intervene, but denied their motions for unsealing. On a consolidated appeal from those denials, this court ruled that materials submitted in connection with Maxwell‘s denied summary judgment motion in the defamation action were judicial documents subject to a strong presumption of public access, determined that the presumption was not overcome by countervailing interests, and ordered the materials
Toward that end, on September 4, 2019, the district court directed the parties to identify the sealed materials by docket number and to categorize them according to their status as judicial or non-judicial documents. After considering the parties’ submissions, on December 16, 2019, the district court made the first ruling challenged on this appeal, i.e., that “only motions actually decided by Judge Sweet—along with documents relevant to Judge Sweet‘s decision on those motions—are properly considered judicial documents to which a presumption of public access attaches.” December 2019 Order at 1. The reasons for this decision were set forth in a January 13, 2020 opinion & order, which stated in the converse that any motions that “were not decided” by Judge Sweet at the time the defamation action was settled had become moot and, therefore, the motions and materials related
Thereafter, on March 31, 2020, the district court issued an unsealing protocol for its individual review of the large number of remaining materials. Pursuant thereto, the district court and the parties agreed upon “a list of non-parties whose privacy, reputational or other interests may be implicated by the unsealing.” Order and Protocol for Unsealing Decided Motions at 1, Giuffre v. Maxwell, No. 15-cv-7433 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 31, 2020). These parties’ identities were pseudonymized by referring to them on the public record as “Does,” i.e., “Doe 1,” “Doe 2,” and so on.
Over the next few years, the district court individually reviewed hundreds of sealed documents, considered the asserted privacy interests of more than a hundred third-parties, conducted additional hearings, and issued further decisions as to unsealing, some of which prompted appeals to this court challenging orders to unseal.7
On December 18, 2023, the district court entered its final unsealing order. See Giuffre v. Maxwell, No. 15-cv-7433, 2023 WL 8715697 (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 18, 2023). Approximately two weeks later, on January 5, 2024, the district court issued a further order denying the Herald‘s and Intervenor
DISCUSSION
I. Jurisdiction
Maxwell argues that this court is without jurisdiction to hear so much of this appeal as challenges the district court‘s December 2019 and January 2020 Orders because they constituted “a final judgment and not a collateral order” which had to be appealed within 30 days of entry, making the January 17, 2024 notices of appeal in this case untimely by several years. Maxwell Br. at 14-18. We are not persuaded.
Appellate jurisdiction generally exists only over the “final decisions of the district courts,”
In deciding whether a district court order is a final decision, we look to “general finality principles,” id. at 250, which instruct that a final decision is one that “ends the litigation on the merits and leaves nothing for the court to do but execute the judgment,” Vera v. Republic of Cuba, 802 F.3d 242, 246 (2d Cir. 2015) (internal quotation marks omitted). Applying those principles to a challenged postjudgment order, we will defer appellate review of such an order “until the district court has decided all related issues to prevent piecemeal appeals of interlocutory orders in ongoing postjudgment proceedings.” Amara v. Cigna Corp., 53 F.4th at 251 (emphasis in original) (internal quotation marks omitted). Thus, we have held jurisdiction lacking to review “postjudgment discovery orders,” but available to review “postjudgment orders denying motions for recusal” or for “disqualif[ication of] a court-appointed monitor” because in the first scenario the “relevant final decision ... is the subsequent judgment that concludes the ... proceedings,” while in the latter two scenarios “the district court had reached its final disposition on the relevant issue.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted and alteration adopted). Similarly, we have held jurisdiction lacking to review a finding of civil contempt until there has been actual defiance and sanctions imposed, but we have held an order denying contempt immediately appealable because “no further district court action is necessary to give life” to the order. Id. (internal quotation marks omitted).
Maxwell argues that the district court‘s postjudgment December 2019 and January 2020 Orders were final because they “categorically removed the undecided motions ... from the unsealing process.” Maxwell Br. at 17. That is incorrect. In the January 2020 Order, the district court specifically
Notwithstanding the fact that the undecided motions and the papers associated with them are not judicial documents, they may eventually be unsealed because they are in some way relevant to Judge Sweet‘s actual decisions—which are numerous—that are certainly subject to the presumption of public access. Ms. Giuffre raises such a possibility in her briefing, suggesting that the undecided motions can fairly be assumed to have played a role in Judge Sweet‘s deliberations as to other rulings. At this stage in the unsealing process, the Court declines Ms. Giuffre‘s invitation to assume categorically that the undecided motions are germane to Judge Sweet‘s rulings on the decided motions but nonetheless acknowledges the realistic possibility that they are relevant and thus ripe for unsealing.
January 2020 Order, 2020 WL 133570, at *4 (emphases added) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted; alterations adopted).
Thus, the district court‘s challenged December 2019 and January 2020 Orders were not final decisions denying unsealing but, rather, steps in the process by which the district court would determine which documents would be unsealed. These orders resulted in the materials not being unsealed at that time, but they specifically left open the possibility of their being unsealed later in the course of the district court‘s ongoing review.
Our reasoning in Amara v. Cigna reinforces that conclusion. When that appeal was heard, this court had already affirmed a final judgment “ordering Cigna to reform its pension plan to pay greater benefits to” a large class of plaintiffs. 53 F.4th at 245. Thereafter, the district court resolved the parties’ disputes over the calculation of those benefits in a series of
In dismissing that part of the appeal challenging the Methodology Orders as untimely, this court concluded that those orders were final when entered because (1) Cigna “relied on the Methodology Orders to calculate [the] benefits” it had already disbursed, (2) the plaintiffs themselves had acknowledged in December 2017 that “the district court had completed its orders on the methodology for computing individual relief,” and (3) the plaintiffs’ “motion for contempt and sanctions necessarily presuppose[d] that the Methodology Orders were final” because “the district court could not have revised the Methodology Orders and simultaneously held Cigna in contempt and imposed sanctions for violating the newly revised orders.” Id. at 254-55 (internal quotation marks omitted) (alteration adopted).
The orders appealed from here are readily distinguishable in ways that defeat Maxwell‘s claim of finality. First, Maxwell has not argued any detrimental reliance on the December 2019 and January 2020 Orders, much less reliance akin to Cigna‘s actual disbursements of benefits in Amara. Nor has Maxwell pointed to anywhere in the record that Giuffre or the Herald conceded that these orders were final with respect to the unsealing of undecided motion materials. On the contrary, the district court acknowledged that such materials might yet be unsealed as relevant to
Radio Station WOW v. Johnson, 326 U.S. 120 (1945), relied on by Maxwell, warrants no different conclusion. There, the Supreme Court held that a decision by a state‘s highest court “not only direct[ing] a transfer of property, but also order[ing] an accounting of profits from such property” was “final,” notwithstanding that the order clearly contemplated ongoing proceedings. Id. at 124-25. The December 2019 and January 2020 Orders here at issue are not analogous. Certainly, they do not direct the immediate transfer of any property. However apt that analogy might be if the district court had ordered the undecided motion materials unsealed in 2019 or 2020—thus making them available for use by Giuffre and the Herald in a way that might be impossible to unwind on an appeal heard several years later—it cannot be drawn here where the district court maintained the materials under seal while leaving open the possibility of unsealing upon review of still other materials.
In sum, the district court‘s ruling in the December 2019 and January 2020 Orders that motions undecided at the time of the defamation action‘s settlement were not judicial documents subject to a presumption of public access was a step in the process for deciding what materials would be unsealed. It was not a final decision from which an appeal had to be taken within 30 days.
Accordingly, we have jurisdiction over all orders challenged on this appeal, and we proceed to address the merits of the parties’ arguments.
The law is well established that “[w]hen reviewing a district court‘s decision to seal a filing or to maintain such a seal, we examine the court‘s factual findings for clear error, its legal determinations de novo, and its ultimate decision to seal or unseal for abuse of discretion.” Maxwell I, 929 F.3d at 47 (internal quotation marks omitted). Here, the record shows that, on remand from our decision in Maxwell I, the district court devoted considerable effort and time to the careful review of more than a hundred sealed documents; that, as a result of that effort, the district court unsealed and made publicly available a large number of those documents; and that it acted well within its discretion in maintaining many others under seal. In a few areas, however, we are compelled to identify legal errors and to remand for further review of certain documents.
A. Undecided Motions and Attendant Materials
In deciding whether to seal or unseal filed materials, a court properly conducts a three-step inquiry:
First, the court determines whether the record at issue is a judicial document—a document to which the presumption of public access attaches. Second, if the record sought is determined to be a judicial document, the court proceeds to determine the weight of the presumption of access to that document. Third, the court must identify all of the factors that legitimately counsel against disclosure of the judicial document and balance those factors against the weight properly accorded the presumption of access.
Stafford v. Int‘l Bus. Machs. Corp., 78 F.4th 62, 69-70 (2d Cir. 2023), cert. denied, 144 S. Ct. 1011 (2024) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted); see
Giuffre and the Herald argue that the district court erred as a matter of law at the first step when, in its December 2019 and January 2020 Orders, the court ruled that motions undecided at the time the underlying defamation action settled were categorically not judicial documents entitled to a presumption of public access and, on that ground, declined to review those documents individually for possible unsealing. We agree that no such categorical conclusion was warranted. To the extent that error may be attributable to any lack of clarity in this court‘s precedents, see January 2020 Order, 2020 WL 133570, at *3 (referencing “lack of clear guidance from the Court of Appeals“), we here state explicitly that a judicial document determination is properly made by evaluating the relevant materials at the time of their filing with the court. Where materials pertain to a motion, the subsequent mooting of the motion is irrelevant to that determination.
To explain, we reiterate some basic principles pertinent to the identification and public disclosure of judicial documents. As this court has recognized, “[t]he common law right of public access to judicial documents is firmly rooted in our nation‘s history.” Lugosch v. Pyramid Co. of Onondaga, 435 F.3d at 119. The presumption of public access is based on the need for independent federal courts “to have a measure of accountability and for the public to have confidence in the administration of justice.” Id. (quoting United States v. Amodeo (“Amodeo II“), 71 F.3d 1044, 1048 (2d Cir. 1995)). Thus, “professional and public monitoring” of the courts “is an essential feature of democratic control” of the third branch of government, which necessarily requires public “access to testimony and documents that are
While most material filed on a federal court‘s docket in the ordinary course of litigation will consist of judicial documents giving rise to a presumption of public access, the conclusion does not necessarily apply to every paper or document filed with a court. See United States v. Amodeo (“Amodeo I“), 44 F.3d 141, 145 (2d Cir. 1995); accord Maxwell I, 929 F.3d at 51-52 (observing that material rejected or stricken by court as “redundant, immaterial, impertinent, or scandalous ... would not be considered a judicial document and would enjoy no presumption of public access” (internal quotation marks omitted)).
To qualify as a “judicial document” the materials at issue must be “relevant to the performance of the judicial function and useful in the judicial process.” Amodeo I, 44 F.3d at 145; accord Lugosch v. Pyramid Co. of Onondaga, 435 F.3d at 119. In this context, “judicial function” refers to a federal court‘s exercise of power under Article III of the Constitution. See Amodeo II, 71 F.3d at 1049-50.
In Lugosch, this court recognized that materials submitted for consideration in an as-yet-undecided summary judgment motion constitute judicial documents “as a matter of law” because the motion sought to have the court “adjudicate[] substantive rights.” 435 F.3d at 121-22 (internal quotation marks omitted). We specifically rejected an argument that it would be “premature” to determine the judicial nature of a document before a court “knows the disposition of the underlying motion.” Id. at 121. Insofar as an earlier case had identified a decided summary judgment motion as a judicial document, we identified no material distinction between decided
The district court distinguished Lugosch because that case‘s “holding specifically applied to ‘contested documents,‘” which it construed to mean documents pertaining to “a pending motion for summary judgment in active litigation, not motions that were rendered moot by settlement of a case.” See January 2020 Order, 2020 WL 133570, at *3 n.3 (quoting Lugosch v. Pyramid Co. of Onondaga, 435 F.3d at 123) (emphasis omitted). Lugosch, however, did not use the phrase “contested documents” to refer to undecided motion materials as such but, rather, to the documents whose sealing was disputed in that case.8
Even if Lugosch had used the term “contested documents” as the district court understood it, that would not support a conclusion that documents cease to be judicial when the motion to which they pertain becomes moot. Certainly, Lugosch itself did not explicitly (or implicitly)
At issue in Bernstein was a sealed complaint that the parties sought to maintain under seal after their settlement of the case. In upholding the district court‘s denial of permanent sealing, this court “easily conclude[d]” that the complaint was a “judicial document“: “A complaint, which initiates judicial proceedings, is the cornerstone of every case, the very architecture of the lawsuit, and access to the complaint is almost always necessary if the public is to understand a court‘s decision.” Bernstein v. Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann LLP, 814 F.3d at 140 (internal quotation marks omitted). Settlement of the case warranted no different conclusion for two reasons:
[1] It is true that settlement of a case precludes the judicial determination of the pleadings’ veracity and legal sufficiency. But attorneys and others submitting pleadings are under an obligation to ensure, when submitting pleadings, that “the factual contentions made have evidentiary support or, if specifically so identified, will likely have evidentiary support after a reasonable opportunity for further investigation or discovery.”
Id. (alteration adopted) (quoting
[2] In any event, the fact of filing a complaint, whatever its veracity, is a significant matter of record. Even in the settlement context, the inspection of pleadings allows the public to discern the prevalence of certain types of cases, the
nature of the parties to particular kinds of actions, information about the settlement rates in different areas of law, and the types of materials that are likely to be sealed. Thus, pleadings are considered judicial records even when the case is pending before judgment or resolved by settlement.
Bernstein v. Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann LLP, 814 F.3d at 140 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted; alteration adopted). As for this second reason, Lugosch v. Pyramid Co. of Onondaga makes plain that it applies to dispositive motions as well as pleadings. See 435 F.3d at 124 (“An adjudication [including by summary judgment] is a formal act of government, the basis of which should, absent exceptional circumstances, be subject to public scrutiny.” (internal quotation marks and alteration omitted)). Further, Maxwell I extends the reasoning to non-dispositive motions—e.g., “motions to compel testimony, to quash trial subpoenae, and to exclude certain deposition testimony“—holding that they qualify as judicial documents “subject to at least some presumption of public access.” 929 F.3d at 50 (noting that “[a]ll such motions, at least on their face, call upon the court to exercise its Article III powers” of adjudication and are “of value ‘to those monitoring the federal courts‘” (quoting Amodeo II, 71 F.3d at 1050)). Together, these precedents clarify that Bernstein‘s second reason does not establish a prerequisite for recognizing material as a judicial document at the first step of analysis. Instead, it explains why pleadings and dispositive motions that qualify as judicial documents bear a particularly strong presumption of public access at the second step—settlement before adjudication notwithstanding. Thus, because Maxwell I recognized that the judicial authority invoked by some non-dispositive motions “is ancillary to the court‘s core role in adjudicating a case,” the presumption of public access accorded to such motions is “generally
Even more relevant here than Maxwell I‘s explanation for why the relative strength of the presumption of access may differ among different kinds of judicial documents is its holding that that the identification of motions—non-dispositive as well as dispositive—as judicial documents does not depend on “which way the court ultimately rules” on the motion “or whether the document ultimately in fact influences the court‘s decision.” Id. at 49. All that matters in identifying motion materials as judicial documents “relevant to the performance of the judicial function” is that they “would reasonably have the tendency to influence a district court‘s ruling on a motion.” Id. (emphasis in original) (internal quotation marks omitted).
That “tendency” determination is predictive and properly made by reference to the motion papers when filed, not to when—or even if—the motion is decided. Thus, a motion that is moot when filed is not properly identified as a judicial document because it can have no tendency to influence a district court‘s exercise of adjudicatory power. But the same conclusion does not obtain with respect to a motion that, when filed, sought to secure a particular ruling within the court‘s
In sum, the identification of a judicial document is a binary decision made as of the time of the document‘s filing, i.e., filed material either is or is not a judicial document depending on whether it could have a tendency to influence the court in the exercise of its
B. Giuffre‘s Florida Deposition Transcript
First, a court should proceed cautiously in assuming that judicial documents submitted to a district court in support of a motion “played no apparent role” in the court‘s ruling on that motion. Indeed, in Lugosch v. Pyramid Co. of Onondaga, we endorsed a contrary assumption, i.e., that submissions to a district court in support of or opposition to a motion “can fairly be assumed to play a role in the court‘s deliberations.” 435 F.3d at 123 (internal quotation marks omitted). Second, and in any event, this court has “expressly rejected the proposition that ‘different types of documents might receive different weights of presumption based on the extent to which they were relied upon in resolving a motion.‘” Maxwell I, 929 F.3d at 48 (quoting Lugosch v. Pyramid Co. of Onondaga, 435 F.3d at 123) (alteration adopted). In Lugosch, we explained that “[i]f the rationale behind access is to allow the public an opportunity to assess the correctness of the judge‘s decision . . . documents that the judge should have considered or relied upon, but did not, are just as deserving of disclosure as those that actually entered into the
In urging otherwise, Maxwell attempts to distinguish Lugosch on the ground that the materials there at issue “were summary judgment documents, which enjoy the strongest presumption of access,” whereas Giuffre‘s Florida deposition transcript “had nothing to do with the merits of Giuffre‘s defamation claim.” Maxwell Br. at 34 (emphasis omitted). That argument elides the district court‘s reasoning, which focused—erroneously—on the extent to which the district court relied on the deposition transcript, not on the type of motion to which the transcript pertained and, hence, on the extent to which the motion called on the court to exercise
For reasons discussed in the preceding section, this means that the intervention motion filings here at issue are judicial documents. See supra at 16-22. And while the presumption of access attached to such documents may not be as “strong” as that attached to summary judgment filings,
Accordingly, we vacate the November 18, 2022 ruling to the extent that it declined to unseal the submitted parts of Giuffre‘s Florida deposition transcript and remand for the district court to conduct a further review consistent with this opinion.
C. The Does’ Sealing Submissions
The Herald argues that the district court erred in sealing “the Does’ objections to the unsealing of their information, on which the Court based its unsealing rulings,” despite the Herald‘s request for such materials to be placed on the public docket. Herald Br. at 33; see App‘x at 584 (requesting that “nature and quantity of comments received be reflected on the public docket“); id. at 601 (requesting that “Court place all non-party objections on the docket[] [and] permit the parties a brief period to respond“).11
In support, the Herald points to “the district court‘s own unsealing protocol,” Herald Br. at 33, which states that the court would “make appropriate redactions . . . and file” the Does’ submissions via the court‘s electronic filing system. Order and Protocol for Unsealing Decided Motions at 4, Giuffre v. Maxwell, No. 15-cv-7433 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 31, 2020); accord Updated Order and Protocol for Unsealing Decided Motions at 4, Giuffre v.
We need not here resolve any possible ambiguity in these two provisions because, in any event, the parties have not cited any order of the district court ruling on the Herald‘s request for the Does’ sealing submissions to be made public, nor have we identified any such order on the extensive district court docket. Under these circumstances, we would normally remand for the district court to rule in the first instance on the Herald‘s request. See Melendez v. City of New York, 16 F.4th 992, 1046 (2d Cir. 2021) (remanding for consideration of argument “advanced in plaintiff‘s” brief on which district court did not rule). Before doing so, however, we address the merits of the parties’ arguments in the interest of easing the burden this unsealing process has already placed on the district court.
In arguing for maintaining the Doe filings under seal, Amicus Curiae Doe 183 relies on a footnote in Maxwell I stating that “the presumption of public access does not apply to material that is submitted to the court solely so that the court may decide whether that same material must be disclosed.” Doe 183 Br. at 7 (emphasis omitted) (quoting Maxwell I, 929 F.3d at 50 n.33). That reliance is misplaced for at least two reasons. First, Doe 183‘s quotation is a truncation of the cited footnote which, read in full, addresses “whether [the relevant disputed] material must be disclosed in the discovery process or shielded by a Protective Order.” Maxwell I, 929 F.3d at 50 n.33 (emphasis added). Footnote 33 did not address material submitted in connection with
Second, and more to the point, Maxwell I defines a judicial document as material filed with a court that “would reasonably have the tendency to influence [not only] a district court‘s ruling on a motion . . . [but also] the exercise of its supervisory powers.” 929 F.3d at 49 (emphasis omitted); see id. (“[A] court performs the judicial function not only when it rules on motions currently before it, but also when properly exercising its inherent supervisory powers.” (internal quotation marks omitted and alteration adopted)). The sealing or unsealing of court filings is an exercise of supervisory power over the court‘s docket. See id. at 51 (“Every court has supervisory power over its own records and files . . . .” (quoting Nixon v. Warner Commc‘ns, Inc., 435 U.S. 589, 598 (1978)) (internal quotation marks and alteration omitted)).
The Doe filings here at issue qualify as judicial documents because they were submitted to “influence [the] district court‘s ruling[s]” as to whether other judicial documents submitted throughout the defamation litigation should be maintained under seal; they were not submitted “solely so that the court may decide whether that same material” —i.e., the Doe filings—“must be disclosed in . . . discovery.” Id. at 49, 50 & n.33 (emphasis added); cf. SEC v. TheStreet.Com, 273 F.3d 222, 232–33 (2d Cir. 2001) (holding deposition transcript not judicial document when submitted only so district court could determine whether that transcript met protective order‘s definition of “confidential information” so as to be excused from filing on public docket). Accordingly, a presumption of public access attaches to the Doe filings, and the district court on remand can proceed to the second and
Because the Doe filings invoked the court‘s supervisory powers with respect to its maintenance of other documents on its docket, the filings are incrementally more attenuated from and “ancillary to the court‘s core role in adjudicating a case,” Maxwell I, 929 F.3d at 50, and, thus, entitled to a somewhat lower presumption of public access. How much lower depends on the underlying judicial documents at issue. The more those documents implicate a court‘s core adjudicative role, the stronger the presumption of access that applies to them and, by extension, to filings seeking to seal or unseal them. The more removed the underlying documents are from a court‘s core adjudicative role, the more reduced the presumption of access that applies to them, and to sealing filings pertaining to them. See Lugosch v. Pyramid Co. of Onondaga, 435 F.3d at 119 (referencing “continuum” on which judicial document‘s presumption of access is governed by “role of the material at issue in the exercise of
D. Remaining Challenges
We have reviewed Giuffre‘s and the Herald‘s further arguments challenging the district court‘s decisions to maintain under seal parts of Maxwell‘s deposition and parts of documents identifying certain Does, and its decision not to release the list of Does it used in its unsealing review. We identify neither legal error nor abuse of discretion in these decisions and, thus, we reject the arguments challenging them on the merits.
CONCLUSION
To summarize, we hold as follows:
- This court has jurisdiction to review the district court‘s December 2019 and January 2020 Orders notwithstanding Giuffre‘s and the Herald‘s failure to file notices of appeal within 30 days of their entry because these orders were not final and, thus, are properly reviewed on timely appeal of the district court‘s final unsealing orders issued on December 18, 2023 and January 5, 2024.
- In maintaining certain documents under seal or refusing to make other documents public, the district court erred in the following ways:
The district court concluded that materials filed in connection with motions subsequently mooted by settlement of the underlying case were categorically not “judicial documents” entitled to some presumption of public access. Whether such materials are properly identified as judicial documents is determined as of the time of filing and that determination is not affected by subsequent mootness. - The district court concluded in its November 18, 2022 oral ruling that Giuffre‘s Florida deposition transcript offered in support of a third-party motion to intervene was entitled to only a “barely cognizable” presumption of access because the “document played no apparent role in the Court‘s decision on the motion.” Transcript at 9–10, Giuffre v. Maxwell, No. 15-cv-7433 (S.D.N.Y. Nov. 18, 2022). Documents do not “receive different weights of presumption based on the extent to which they were relied upon in resolving a motion.” Maxwell I, 929 F.3d at 48 (quoting Lugosch v. Pyramid Co. of Onondaga, 435 F.3d at 123) (alteration adopted).
- The district court failed to treat briefs and supporting documents filed in connection with sealing or unsealing motions as judicial documents. Insofar as such materials have the tendency to influence sealing rulings, which are an exercise of judicial supervisory power, they constitute judicial documents. The weight of the presumption of access applicable to filings implicating a court‘s supervisory power may be less than that applicable to documents relevant to a court‘s exercise of adjudicatory power. That weight may also
vary according to the weight of the presumption applicable to the underlying material.
- In all other respects, appellants’ claims of error are without merit.
For the forgoing reasons, we VACATE the district court‘s December 2019 and January 2020 Orders in their entirety, and its November 18, 2022 oral ruling to the extent set forth above, and we REMAND the case to the district court for individualized review of materials consistent with this opinion. In all other respects, we AFFIRM the appealed orders and rulings.
A True Copy
Catherine O‘Hagan Wolfe, Clerk
United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit
Catherine O‘Hagan Wolfe