From Anonymous v. Bennett, decided May 3 by Roanoke County Judge Charles Dorsey:
Virginia Code section 8.01-15.1 permits a Plaintiff to proceed anonymously under a pseudonym "if the anonymous litigant discharges the burden of showing special circumstances such that the need for anonymity outweighs the public's interest in knowing the party's identity and outweighs any prejudice to any other party." Courts may consider:
whether the requested anonymity is intended merely to avoid the annoyance and criticism that may attend any litigation or is to preserve privacy in a sensitive and highly personal matter; whether identification poses a risk of retaliatory physical or mental harm to the requesting party or to innocent nonparties; the ages of the persons whose privacy interests are sought to be protected; whether the action is against a governmental or private party; and the risk of unfairness to other parties if anonymity is maintained….
In refusing to allow plaintiff to proceed pseudonymously, the court relied in part on plaintiff's identity already having become widely known at VMI, stemming from his testifying at a disciplinary hearing arising from plaintiff's internal VMI complaint. But the court also added this analysis of the "risk of unfairness to other parties if anonymity is maintained" factor, which could be more generally applicable:
