Cummings v. Abramson

Background

Steven Cummings filed the underlying action without a lawyer and requested permission to proceed without paying court fees. In 2000, Judge Michael B. Mukasey dismissed the action for failure to state a claim and denied Cummings’s request for an injunction. The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit later dismissed Cummings’s appeal.

About 23 years later, Cummings moved to “Seal and/or expunge all records of this matter.” He cited privacy concerns and a desire to avoid hardship or further hardship to himself or others.

Court’s analysis

The court explained that both common-law principles and the First Amendment protect public access to court documents. That access is not absolute, and a court may restrict access after considering the relevant facts and circumstances.

The court applied the Second Circuit’s three-part framework. First, it determined whether the materials were judicial documents, meaning documents relevant to the court’s work and useful in the judicial process. Second, it considered the strength of the public-access presumption. Third, it balanced that presumption against competing interests, including privacy concerns.

The court found that the records in this case were judicial documents subject to a presumption of public access. It concluded that the subject matter of Cummings’s complaint, which Judge Mukasey had described as a “stream of consciousness diatribe” that made it impossible to understand the complaint, did not overcome that presumption. The court also found no competing considerations that warranted limiting public access. It concluded that the circumstances were not sufficiently extraordinary to justify sealing the records.

Ruling

Judge Laura Taylor Swain denied Cummings’s motion to seal the case and directed the clerk to terminate the motion. The court also certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that an appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith and denied Cummings permission to appeal without paying court fees.