Judge Denies Pseudonymity, Because Plaintiff's Sensitive Personal Information Wouldn't Likely Emerge in the Case—But then Disclosed That Information In Its Order

From Eleventh Circuit Judge Andrew Brasher, joined by Judges Kevin Newsom and Ed Carnes, in Wednesday’s Brooks v. City of Southside:

Brooks [a pseudonym] alleged violations of the United States Constitution and Alabama state law related to his arrest and prosecution…. The district court allowed Brooks to file a motion under seal to explain why he should be allowed to proceed anonymously. Brooks did so, and he revealed sensitive, personal information that he thought would come up during the litigation.

The district court discussed the sensitive information in Brooks’s filing in a public order and then gave him the choice of filing a non-anonymous complaint or dropping his suit. Brooks asked the district court to reconsider its order and to seal it, arguing that the district court’s public order undermined its conclusion that the information he filed under seal would not be disclosed in the litigation. The district court declined to reconsider its order, but it granted Brooks’s request to seal it.

The district court did not abuse its discretion in denying Brooks’s initial request to proceed anonymously. The district court properly invoked our presumption against anonymous pleading, and it applied the right test from our precedents. The district court reasonably concluded that the litigation would not require Brooks to disclose information of the utmost intimacy or admit that he intended to engage in illegal conduct.

But we believe the district court abused its direction in denying Brooks’s reconsideration motion without explaining how the disclosure of his allegedly sensitive information affected its analysis. The district court’s ruling on Brooks’s initial anonymity motion was based, in large part, on the premise that Brooks would not be compelled to disclose in the litigation the sensitive information that he had filed under seal. But, after inviting Brooks to file that same information under seal, the district court’s public order did disclose that sensitive information on the public docket. The district court did not explain how that change in circumstances played into its decision, and we cannot conduct that analysis in the first instance. Accordingly, we vacate the district court’s order and remand for further proceedings….

The district court reasonably concluded that Brooks’s complaint—which, on its face, presents claims related to an alleged wrongful arrest and malicious prosecution—did not warrant anonymity. Nothing about Brooks’s complaint and his legal claims would have required him “to disclose information of the utmost intimacy” or would have “compelled [him] to admit [his] intention to engage in illegal conduct.” Brooks, in his sealed filing, provided additional, sensitive, information that he contended warranted anonymity. But the district court was within its discretion to conclude that (1) Brooks’s additional information was not central to his claims and (2) Brooks’s additional information was unlikely to emerge in the litigation.

Although the district court did not abuse its discretion by denying Brook’s initial motion, we believe the district court erred when it denied Brooks’s motion for reconsideration without explanation. The district court had directed Brooks, a pro se litigant, to file his motion to proceed anonymously under seal. In that motion, Brooks disclosed sensitive, personal information that, he believed, justified litigation under a pseudonym. Despite allowing Brooks to file his motion under seal, the district court disclosed Brooks’s personal information in a public order such that, if Brooks later revealed his true identity under the same case number, his private information could be public.

Brooks argues that, by making his private information public in its order, the district court changed the facts about whether Brooks should be able to proceed anonymously. We agree. The district court made no finding in its initial order about whether the information in Brooks’s sealed filing would have warranted anonymity if it had been central to his complaint or likely to have been divulged during the litigation. Instead, the heart of the district court’s analysis in denying Brooks’s initial motion was its conclusion that the litigation would not require Brooks to disclose the information that he had filed under seal. But, in some respects, the district court’s order did just that—it put the information that Brooks had filed under seal on the public docket….

Because we are not sure why the district court denied the motion for reconsideration, we are not able to consider whether the district court abused its discretion. “A court must explain its decisions adequately enough to allow for meaningful appellate review.” On remand, the district court should review Brooks’s renewed request to remain anonymous in the light of the order’s exposure of the information in Brooks’s sealed filing. The district court may wish to make fact findings about whether its public order meaningfully affected Brooks’s privacy. It may also wish to consider if any intermediate measures short of anonymity are appropriate to safeguard Brooks’s under-seal information….

Justin Miller of Schaerr | Jaffe (with which I’m affiliated on a part-part-part-time basis) represented plaintiff pro bono, under appointment by the Eleventh Circuit.

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