Toporek v. R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company

Background

This employment case between plaintiff Dorota "Gigi" Toporek and defendant R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company generated extensive sealed filings in connection with two motions decided by the presiding District Judge, the Honorable John R. Tunheim: (1) Defendant's Motion to Exclude Plaintiff's Expert (denied by Judge Tunheim), and (2) Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment (granted in part and denied in part by Judge Tunheim). The parties filed two joint motions asking Magistrate Judge Foster to keep the documents associated with those motions permanently under seal.

Legal Standard

Under District of Minnesota Local Rule 5.6, documents may be sealed only by statute, rule, or court order. The Eighth Circuit recognizes a common-law right of public access to judicial records, but that right is not absolute. Courts must balance the degree to which sealing would interfere with public access against the interests served by confidentiality. The weight given to the presumption of public access depends on the role the documents played in the exercise of Article III judicial power (i.e., the constitutional power of federal courts to decide cases). When documents play a material role in that exercise of judicial power, the presumption of access is strong and can only be overcome by "compelling reasons." When documents played little such role, the presumption is weaker and any countervailing reason may suffice.

Analysis

Strength of the Presumption

Because both the motion to exclude and the motion for summary judgment were decided by an Article III judge, the court found that all documents at issue played a material role in the exercise of Article III power. Accordingly, the stronger "compelling reasons" standard applied to all of the documents.

Categories of Documents

The parties sought to seal memoranda (legal briefs), deposition transcripts, deposition exhibits, an expert report, declarations (sworn statements), declaration exhibits, and other exhibits — a large number of individual filings in total. For some documents, publicly available redacted versions had already been filed, and only the unredacted versions were sought to be kept sealed.

Court's Findings

The court rejected the argument that a confidentiality designation made during discovery (the pre-trial exchange of information between parties) is by itself a sufficient basis for permanent sealing. The court reviewed each document individually. With certain exceptions, the court found compelling reasons to keep the documents sealed because they contained confidential and sensitive trade secrets, proprietary business information, financial information, or personally identifiable information. The court also found that the parties had filed appropriately narrowly redacted public versions of their briefs and other documents.

Exceptions: Attorney Declarations Ordered Unsealed

The court identified a recurring mismatch in the sealing requests: for several docket entries, the parties described the filing as a substantive document (such as a deposition transcript or exhibit), but the actual docket entry was a declaration of counsel (attorney Emily A. McNee) that simply attached the substantive document as an exhibit. The court construed each such request as covering both the attorney declaration and the attached exhibit. The court found that the attached exhibits warranted sealing, but that the attorney declarations themselves contained no confidential or proprietary information and therefore should be unsealed. This applied to ECF Nos. 92, 110, 128, 130, 132, 133, and 136. Similarly, ECF No. 120 (a declaration from counsel that merely attached exhibits) was ordered unsealed.

Documents Not Addressed by the Parties

The court observed that the parties failed to request or address continued sealing for a number of documents that had been filed under temporary seal, including various counsel declarations and three substantive documents. Because no request was made for those documents, the court directed the Clerk of Court to unseal them in 21 days unless a party files a motion for further consideration under Local Rule 5.6(f) by September 21, 2026.

Preclusive Effect

The court noted that its ruling keeping documents sealed has no intended preclusive effect on how the District Judge might handle those same documents in deciding any future dispositive motion or at trial.

Disposition

The first Joint Motion Regarding Continued Sealing (ECF No. 140) was granted in full. The second Joint Motion Regarding Continued Sealing (ECF No. 141) was granted in part and denied in part: most requested documents were ordered kept permanently under seal, while certain attorney declarations were ordered unsealed, and documents not addressed in the motions were ordered unsealed in 21 days absent further motion.