From Chief Judge Beryl Howell's opinion in Plaintiff v. Verizon Communications, Inc., just decided today:
Plaintiff seeks to proceed under pseudonym in the instant action seeking to quash a subpoena issued for this person's phone records to Verizon Communications, Inc. … by the United States House of Representatives Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol …. Plaintiff seeks to proceed pseudonymously because his/her "identity is wholly irrelevant to this Court's determination of whether the subpoena giving rise to this action is a lawful exercise of Congressional power and because Plaintiff otherwise has no non-public avenue to stop the production of Plaintiff's personal phone records."
Generally, a complaint must state the names of the parties …. The Federal and Local Rules [of Civil Procedure] promote a "presumption in favor of disclosure [of litigants' identities], which stems from the 'general public interest in the openness of governmental processes,' … and, more specifically, from the tradition of open judicial proceedings." That "presumption of openness in judicial proceedings is a bedrock principle of our judicial system." Accordingly, courts "generally require parties to a lawsuit to openly identify themselves to protect the public's legitimate interest in knowing all of the facts involved, including the identities of the parties." …
Courts … in special circumstances, may permit a party to proceed anonymously. A party seeking to do so, however, "bears the weighty burden of both demonstrating a concrete need for such secrecy, and identifying the consequences that would likely befall it if forced to proceed in its own name." Once that showing has been made, "the court must then 'balance the litigant's legitimate interest in anonymity against countervailing interests in full disclosure.'" …
At this early stage of the litigation, this Court is not persuaded that plaintiff has met the burden of showing that legitimate privacy interests held by plaintiff outweigh the public's presumptive interest in knowing the details of this litigation. Plaintiff has articulated no privacy interest sufficient to rebut the presumption in favor of open proceedings….
