Lynas v. Stang
- John Tunheim
- 0:18-cv-02301
- U.S. District Court · District of Minnesota
- 2
In Lynas v. Stang, Judge Menendez granted the parties’ sealing motion, unsealed one document, and kept five others sealed.
The parties and anyone seeking access to the identified exhibits, including information concerning a minor child, other inmates’ medical or mental-health data, law-enforcement-sensitive information, and James Lynas’s medical and mental-health records.
What happened
In Lynas v. Stang, the parties jointly asked the court to continue sealing documents filed with two summary-judgment motions. They agreed that five exhibits contained sensitive information, including a minor child’s personal identifiers, medical or mental-health data about other inmates, and law-enforcement-sensitive information.
The parties also agreed that one exhibit containing James Lynas’s medical and mental-health records could be unsealed because the plaintiff had placed that information in dispute and it concerned the case’s merits. The court granted the joint motion, ordered docket entry 79 unsealed, and ordered docket entries 65, 67, 69, 91, and 95 to remain sealed.
Judge Katherine Menendez issued the order on June 2, 2020. The ruling addressed document access and did not decide the parties’ underlying summary-judgment motions.
The detailed version
- Lynas v. Stang · No. 0:18-cv-02301
- John Tunheim
- June 2, 2020
Background
The court considered the parties’ Joint Motion Regarding Continued Sealing. The motion concerned documents filed under temporary seal in connection with the Sherburne County Defendants’ motion for summary judgment and the MEnD Defendants’ motion for summary judgment.
The parties agreed that five exhibits should remain sealed. Three contained personal identifiers for a minor child. One contained medical or mental-health information about other inmates. One contained information classified as Law Enforcement Sensitive by the Department of Homeland Security. The parties also agreed that an exhibit containing James Lynas’s medical and mental-health records could be unsealed because the plaintiff had placed that information in dispute and the records implicated the merits of the case.
Ruling
Applying the governing standard identified in IDT Corp. v. eBay, the court granted the joint motion. It directed the Clerk of Court to unseal docket entry 79 and to keep docket entries 65, 67, 69, 91, and 95 under seal.
The order resolved the document-sealing issue. It did not state a ruling on either underlying motion for summary judgment.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.