Shopek v. Minneapolis, City of
- Dulce Foster
- 0:24-cv-04118
- U.S. District Court · District of Minnesota
- 4
In Shopek v. Minneapolis, Judge Foster granted the parties’ request to keep exhibits containing sensitive personal information under seal.
The order affects the parties, the clerk’s handling of the listed exhibits, and public access to those court records. It does not decide the City’s motion to dismiss or the underlying claims.
What happened
In Shopek v. City of Minneapolis, the parties jointly asked the court to continue sealing eight exhibits filed with the City’s motion to dismiss. They said the exhibits contained private and confidential information about Shopek.
The court explained that judicial records are generally open to the public, but that access can be limited for compelling reasons. It reviewed the exhibits and found that they contained sensitive personal information, including health details, and that Shopek’s interest in confidentiality currently outweighed the public interest in disclosure.
Judge Dulce J. Foster granted the joint sealing motion and directed the clerk to keep the listed documents under seal. The order said the decision could be revisited later, including when the motion to dismiss is decided or during trial.
The detailed version
- Shopek v. Minneapolis, City of · No. 0:24-cv-04118
- Dulce J. Foster
- Apr. 15, 2025
Background
The court considered the parties’ Joint Motion Regarding Continued Sealing, filed in connection with the City of Minneapolis’s motion to dismiss. The City had filed eight supporting exhibits under seal and stated that redacting them was impracticable. The parties agreed that the exhibits should remain sealed because they contained personal, private, and confidential information about Plaintiff that was not public under the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act.
Legal standard
The court stated that parties may seal documents in a civil case only as provided by statute or rule, or with the court’s permission. Judicial records generally carry a common-law right of public access, but that right is not absolute. When documents play a material role in the court’s decision or are valuable to people monitoring the federal courts, the party seeking secrecy must provide compelling reasons for keeping them sealed.
The court also explained that treating information as private under the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act does not automatically require sealing it in a lawsuit. That statute governs the City’s disclosure obligations and does not itself resolve the public’s interest in open access to court records.
Analysis and ruling
Because the exhibits were connected to a dispositive motion, the court found that they were likely to play a role in District Judge Provinzino’s decision and therefore were subject to the stronger presumption of public access. After reviewing the exhibits, however, the court found that each contained sensitive or personal information, including health details about Plaintiff. At least at that time, Plaintiff’s legitimate interest in confidentiality outweighed the public interest in unsealing the exhibits.
Judge Dulce J. Foster granted the parties’ Joint Motion Regarding Continued Sealing. The order directed the clerk to keep under seal the documents filed at ECF Nos. 21, 21-1, 22-2, 22-3, 22-4, 22-5, 22-6, and 22-7. The court cautioned that the decision was not necessarily final: Judge Provinzino could later determine, when deciding the underlying motion or during trial, that some or all of the information should be unsealed because the public interest outweighed the confidentiality interests.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.