From today's decision in Giuffre v. Maxwell, before Second Circuit Judges José Cabranes, Rinna Raggi, and Myrna Pérez:
Following this court's remand in Brown v. Maxwell ("Maxwell I") (2d Cir. 2019), the … District Court … 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. Plaintiff Virginia Giuffre, now deceased, and Intervenors the Miami Herald Media Company and Miami Herald reporter Julie Brown … appeal from those parts of the district court's orders declining to unseal certain documents….
This appeal has its origins in a 2015 defamation action brought … 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 lies." In the extensive discovery conducted in that action, several hundred documents were produced, prompting multiple sealing motions …, which resulted in "nearly one-fifth of the docket" being filed under seal. Those documents, which included all filings pertaining to Maxwell's summary judgment motion, remained under seal when, on May 24, 2017, the parties executed a settlement agreement, prompting the district court to close the case the following day.
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 unsealed (subject to minimal redactions)…. 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….
The Second Circuit partly affirms the decision below and partly reverses it, but here are the interesting legal conclusions:
