Administrators and clerks of the Vermont Superior Court asked the United States District Court for the District of Vermont to issue a permanent injunction permitting withholding the release of papers filed in the course of litigation so that they would not be available to the public before being reviewed by court personnel to make certain that they were signed, that they did not contain unredacted confidential information, that they complied with technical requirements under the court’s rules, and that they did not show unredacted filers’ notes as the Vermont courts was transitioning to the electronic filing of such materials with the courts.

The Plaintiff news and related media organization, contending such a practice constituted a violation of their First Amendment right of access to court documents, sued. After a bench trial, the district court issued a judgment in Plaintiffs’ favor, holding that Vermont’s pre-access review process violated Plaintiffs’ First Amendment right of access to judicial documents, and issued a permanent injunction barring Defendants from withholding complaints until the completion of a pre-access review.

In the words of the United States Second Circuit Court of Appeals “We agree with the Plaintiffs and the district court that Vermont’s practice in the period reviewed by the trial court violated Plaintiffs’ First Amendment right of access”… but then opined that it “that it agreed with the Defendants that the term of the permanent injunction were not supported by the court’s findings”.

Accordingly, the Circuit said it affirmed the district court’s judgment to the extent it found that the practice it reviewed violated the First Amendment, but vacated the permanent injunction “to the extent that it barred the Defendants from engaging in any review for unredacted confidential by the Plaintiffs information before permitting access to the complaints and remanded the matter for further proceedings. 

Click HERE to access the decision of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.