Louisiana Abortion Doctors’ Names Improperly Designated Secret

Materials identifying abortion doctors who brought a lawsuit challenging Louisiana law belong to the public and therefore can’t be sealed or redacted, the Fifth Circuit said.

A federal trial court used the wrong standard when deciding the doctors’ motion to redact or seal the case records, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit also said.

Court records are presumed to be public, the court said. Thus, a higher standard applies when a party is seeking to seal a record than the one courts use when deciding on a protective order during the pretrial discovery stage, it said.

The ...