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 November 5, 2005
Ruling Favors Open Records
Supreme Court Decision Concerns Sealed Files In Priest Abuse Case
by Lynne Tuohy
Courant Staff Writer
Hartford Courant, November 5, 2005
The state Supreme Court has paved the way for the potential release of reams of sealed documents in a Bridgeport priest sex scandal case that was settled four years ago, in a ruling Friday emphasizing the presumption that court records are open to the public.
"The defendants [the Bridgeport diocese and its accused priests] bear a heavy burden of establishing a compelling interest in preventing those documents from being disclosed to the public," Justice Richard N. Palmer wrote for the majority in the 3-2 ruling.
The ruling does not guarantee that the sealed documents will ultimately be released; lawyers for the diocese are expected to fight vigorously to keep the documents secret. But it clearly states that judges maintain control over protective orders, injunctions and sealing orders long after a civil case has been resolved or even withdrawn. The case, involving 23 victims, was settled in March 2001.
The decision endorses a lower court ruling effectively granting four newspapers -including The Courant and The New York Times - permission to intervene and seek access to the documents. The documents most likely include depositions of Cardinal Edward M. Egan, archbishop of New York, who was bishop of the Bridgeport diocese from 1988 to 2000.
The Supreme Court ruling - handed down the same week it was revealed that the Archdiocese of Hartford had entered a $22 million settlement with 43 claimants who said they were sexually abused as children by archdiocese priests - stresses that court records as a rule should be open.
"The public has a real and legitimate interest in the workings of our courts, and vindication of that interest requires, as a general matter, that the courts' business not be conducted covertly," said Palmer, who was joined by Justice Christine Vertefeuille and Superior Court Judge Joseph A. Licari Jr., who was sitting on the panel by designation.
Chief Justice William J. Sullivan, joined by Justice Peter T. Zarella, dissented, saying that the newspapers should not be permitted to intervene "absent a showing of extraordinary circumstances or compelling need."
The dissenting justices said the trial court should first determine whether the continued secrecy of the documents was a factor in reaching the 2001 settlement. The diocese, in its brief to the court, said that it was.
"In deciding to settle, an essential factor was the expectation and belief by the Diocese that the sealed materials in the court files would remain sealed, and that the discovery documents were and would remain confidential," Sullivan quotes the brief, in a footnote to the dissent.
Attorneys Cindy Robinson and Jason Tremont represented all 23 victims in the case. Robinson said Friday they had argued strenuously against the documents being sealed in the first place.
"Quite frankly, I think the church is in a bit of a bind," Robinson said, citing the policy adopted by the Roman Catholic Church in 2003 of full disclosure in clergy abuse cases. "The church is supposed to have a policy of transparency. It's quite inconsistent for the church to be arguing for protective orders."
The protective orders sealing the files, some of which date to the mid-1990s, were intended to keep potentially volatile information secret until a jury could be chosen. A settlement was reached instead, and the protective orders seemed to be a moot issue until the New York Times in March 2002 filed a motion to intervene and vacate the sealing orders.
Ironically, the documents in question could have been destroyed by the clerk's office one year after the date of the settlement, which would have been two weeks before The Times filed its emergency motion. But the documents were still stored in the Superior Court clerk's office in Waterbury when the motion was filed.
"It is a mere fortuity that the parties had not retrieved and the court had not destroyed the documents before the newspapers sought to intervene," Sullivan wrote in a footnote. "In my view, that fact should weigh against allowing intervention."
Joseph McAleer, spokesman for the Diocese of Bridgeport, said church officials and their lawyers are still reviewing the ruling, noting that the 23 lawsuits were settled in 2001.
"There are fundamental issues at stake here which affect the broader society," McAleer said. "These include the legal right of every citizen to rely on the finality of settled cases; the confidentiality of detailed medical and mental health records and the privacy rights of innocent individuals [witnesses] who where never sued in these particular cases."
Attorney John B. Farley, who represents the diocese, said it entered into the settlement "to save all concerned the painful experience of a public trial." To release sealed documents in the wake of a settlement could discourage others from settling rather than going to trial, he said.
Superior Court Judge Robert F. McWeeny ruled in April 2002 that he had the authority to hear the newspapers' motion, even though more than four months had passed since the case had been resolved. The Supreme Court agreed, ruling that protective orders, like injunctions, are exempt from the four-month deadline established by state law for reopening most cases.
The diocese and several priests involved in the case appealed McWeeny's decision to restore the cases to the docket. That prompted McWeeny to issue a fiery memorandum assailing the "purported appeal" and ordering the disclosure of most of the sealed files. He stated that "the judicial system should not be party to a cover-up by denying access to information concerning a matter of such widespread public interest."
The Supreme Court had to vacate McWeeny's ruling because it was rendered after the diocese appealed, which triggered an automatic stay of the proceedings. The Supreme Court Friday sent the case back to Superior Court in Waterbury for a new hearing, by a different judge, on the merits of the newspapers' motion to open the files.
"We're gratified that the Supreme Court has vigorously reaffirmed the presumption of open court records and defended the right of access to information of such critical public importance," Courant Deputy Managing Editor G. Claude Albert said.
Attorney Daniel Klau, a media lawyer who was not involved in the case, said the ruling's emphasis on openness is significant going into the next round of the case.
"The majority gives very clear instructions to the trial court about the weight that should be given to various factors it has to consider - great weight to the public interest in openness and transparency, and not that much weight to the parties' interest in secrecy," Klau said. He added that he "cannot understand Sullivan's and Zarella's hostility to granting the media, and public generally, at least the opportunity to litigate the merits of protective orders."
Copyright 2005, Hartford Courant
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