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IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

LAURA LYNN HAMMETT, an individual,                      Plaintiff-Appellant,             vs.   PORTFOLIO RECOVERY ASSOCIATES, LLC, a Limited Liability Company; DOES 1-99                      Defendant-Appellees

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Case Nos.: 23-2638 and 23-3093

Laura Lynn Hammett’s Motion for Public Access to the Record

Table of Contents

1. Grounds and Relief                                                                                               
2. Complying With the Disclosure Restrictions is Unconstitutionally Burdensome as Applied in this Case
3. The Forms and Policies are Already in the Public Domain                                 
4. The District Court Condoned Abuse of the Protective Order                             
5. PRA’s Practices Should not be Emulated                                                            
6. PRA is Trying to Protect Inaccurate and Stale Information                                
7. Reversing Privacy Designations is an Appropriate Sanction for Spoliation of Evidence                                                                                                               
8. There is a Strong Presumption of Public Access to Court Records                      
9. The Circuit Court May Make Less Restrictive Protections Against Disclosure                                                                                                               

1. Grounds and Relief

     The District Court allowed PRA to turn the case into a Star Chamber. Lies and deceit were covered up by designating data that is central to this case and forms that are available to the public elsewhere as “confidential” and “under seal”. PRA should not be allowed to cloak bad behavior in secrecy.

     The public’s right to access to court records is particularly important in this case because PRA rarely goes to trial and makes confidentiality a customary part of its settlements. A FOIA request for the CFPB 2015 action against PRA came back void, as did a request for copies of evidence on PRA v. Mejia. (Affidavit ¶¶ 6,7)

     Citizens of the Eighth Circuit who are similarly situated to me, who received abusive and harassing phone calls from PRA about an alleged debt that is insufficiently documented, should not need to reinvent the wheel when pursuing justice against the debt buyer and its army of attorneys.   

     The District Court approved a patently overbroad Protective Order (“PO”) giving PRA the ability to unilaterally declare any information to be confidential. PRA insisted PO paragraph 13 required all information designated confidential to be filed under seal and never become part of the public record and the Court agreed. The Court denied my numerous challenges to the designations.

     Seeing is believing. (Affidavit ¶ 35)

     The public should be able to see PRA’s relevant policy for handling waivers of debt for tax purposes; PRA’s relevant policy for handling recipients of calls who PRA believes to be in California who don’t want to be recorded; the spoliation of evidence by PRA and its predecessor. (Affidavit ¶ 10)

     PRA argued several times that my objections to the designations were untimely. My objections were timely. More telling, the Court granted the first PRA motion to file under seal on the day it was filed, R. Doc.50 and R. Doc. 51, TEO respectively. I was denied leave to file electronically, so I filed a motion to reconsider the next day. I bemoaned the Court for granting the privacy designation before my objections were due. R. Doc.54, at 3.

     Please give the public access to the account records, recordings and written policies referred to in the Eighth Circuit’s record by allowing direct quotations and paraphrasing in the briefs, and allowing the pages that are referred to directly in the briefs to be attached as an addendum, despite the confidentiality designation in the District Court. (Affidavit ¶ 17)

     Please deem the confidentiality of the expert report and rebuttal as belonging to me, so I may disclose the statements that won’t harm or cause strife between me and my loved ones.

     The only redactions should be those set forth in F.R.C.P. 5.2(a) and those that PRA supports with compelling reasons that outweigh the important goal of transparency. Matters that are already in the public domain should not be deemed confidential. (F.R.C.P. 5.2(d))    

     PRA redacted some material from the documents that are under seal. The Court allowed these redactions despite my argument. For example, the bill of sale has whited out data. (R. Doc. 76, Exhibit 1 A)

     Please mandate that the redactions be removed or do not allow those redacted documents to be used by PRA as evidence. (FRE 106)

2. Complying With the Disclosure Restrictions is Unconstitutionally Burdensome as Applied in this Case

     Lack of experience, respect for authority and fear of being incarcerated for contempt made me overly cautious when I filed my Opposition to Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment (“MSJ”), R. Doc. 99. To me, “under seal” means the public can know nothing about the document, not its title, no quotations, not even a synopsis. (Affidavit ¶ 18)

     After I filed under seal in response to the MSJ that was redacted and had several exhibits under seal, PRA and the Court discussed openly documents I kept confidential. (See the Court’s Consolidated Order (R. Doc. 173) and Order on Summary Judgment and Reconsideration (R. Doc. 237) in general.)

     The Court quoted heavily from the under-seal documents. Several examples are in R. Doc. 173, at 5. (Affidavit ¶ 19) But the Court’s recitation of what was under seal is jaw dropping inaccurate. (Affidavit ¶¶ 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15)

     Despite revealing things that were confidential and revealing things that were under seal, sometimes inaccurately, the District Court made threatening comments that if I did the same thing as the Court I would be sanctioned. (R. Doc. 124, at 7) (The Court said, “because if I had concluded that what you wrote did actually reveal or paraphrase something that was confidential, you could be on the hook for attorney’s fees and significant moneys for the Defendants’ costs in doing this motion.”) The Court’s duplicity created more anxiety for me and chilled my free speech. (Affidavit ¶¶ 20, 21)

     The District Court denied access to electronic filing to me because I am not an attorney. (R. Docs. 7, 8, 9, and 18) Conventional filing is more expensive and more burdensome. I am low income, have medical issues and awful clerical skills. The extra work involved for maintaining privacy is the door of justice slamming in my face. (Affidavit ¶¶ 22, 23)

     Licensed attorneys have difficulty with filing under seal and redactions.  (Affidavit ¶¶ 24, 25)

     PRA filed my credit report marked “CONFIDENTIAL”, and my unredacted birthdate and social security number on two other documents onto PACER. (Affidavit ¶ 24)

     The clerical work and restrictions with the threat of contempt sanctions effectively bars me, a non-attorney living on a $639 per month pension, from proceeding on my grievance in the most effective way.

     It is likely that everything I want to write about is already a matter of public record and therefore can be discussed. Still, I hope the Ninth Circuit gives explicit permission to disregard the privacy designations condoned by the District Court. (Affidavit ¶ 26)

3. The Forms and Policies are Already in the Public Domain 

     PRA has designated as Confidential, and thereby obtained leave to file those documents under seal, documents where the protected content, such as form, is publicly available.  Yet publicly available documents and information cannot be subject to such protection. See Seattle Times Co. v. Rhinehart, 467 U.S. 20, 34 (1984) (“[P]art[ies] may disseminate the identical information covered by the protective order as long as the information is gained through means independent of the court’s processes.”).

     PO, R. Doc.46-0, ¶ 5 states inter alia, “[a] party shall make such designation only with respect to discovery materials revealing [] categories of information not known to the general public.”

     PO ¶ 16 states, inter alia, “[i]f a producing party knowingly discloses its own confidential or privileged information in a pleading filed in the Court’s public record or in a publication disseminated to the general public, the producing party shall be deemed thereby to have consented to the removal of that designation with respect to the information disclosed.” Therefore, PRA is deemed to have consented to removal of confidentiality from the forms of the bill of sale, affidavits, PRANet, “Data Load”, and call log, which PRA filed elsewhere in publications disseminated to the general public.

     The forms in this case were disclosed to the public in other cases. For example, PRANet and call log documents extremely similar to those filed under seal in this case were filed in a case called Evans v. PRA, USDC New Jersey, 1:15-cv-1455. Those documents were attached as Exhibits D and E to R. Doc. 163, at 12-21. The same forms were filed in this case as Exhibits D and E to the Motion for Summary Judgment, Doc 76-7 and 76-8. The District Court allowed those documents to remain under seal.

     In the Evans case, PRA filed a data load document, R. Doc. 163, at 11, of the same format as the data load document filed under seal by PRA in this case, R. Doc. 76-6, Exhibit C in both cases. The difference between the two data load documents is that in Evans, there was a note at the bottom stating, “Data printed by [PRA] from electronic records provided by [original creditor] pursuant to the sale of accounts from [original creditor] to [PRA] on 9/28/2012”. There is no similar note in this case. (It is acceptable to tell the public what is not on the sealed documents.)

     PRA chose not to redact the central facts from the transcript of the June 14, 2023 hearing. (R. Doc. 270) Those facts are now in the public domain. (Affidavit ¶¶ 27, 28) For example, the spoliation of four pieces of Old Account Level Documents was discussed at R. Doc. 261 at 50:4 to 52:7. The corresponding documents are R. Doc. 76, Exhibit E, Bates No. PRA_HAMMETT_000209[1] and PRA_HAMMETT_000216. The number of documents showing is 3 and 5. OALD, directly below, says something else. Spoliation of evidence shows the reason PRA and the District Court kept the account notes for the underlying account under seal was to hide the truth from the public. (Affidavit ¶¶ 9, 28)

     PRA’s calling pattern to my cell phone for the period from September 2020 to February 18, 2021 is known to me already. It is as I described in my complaint, written under Rule 11 and verified (R. Doc.1, p. 34). Likewise, PRA’s calling pattern, policy and practices are known to the millions of people PRA collects from each year. (Affidavit ¶ 29)

      It is notable that in Evans, Mr. Evans claimed PRA called him as many as six or seven times per day, but the PRA generated “call history” shows a maximum of three calls on one day and no more than two calls any other day.

     The District Court knows that protective orders cannot bestow confidentiality on information already known to the receiving party, especially when already in the public domain. In addition to the more thorough discourse at the hearing of December 1, 2021, the Court gave a discourse found in the transcript of (R. Doc. 124, at 13-14).

     As Arkansas Solicitor General, the Court advocated for the People in the case of Planned Parenthood of Arkansas & Eastern Oklahoma Inc., et al v. Cindy Gillespie, Director, Arkansas Department of Human Services, USDC ARED Case No. 4:15-CV-00566-KGB (“PPAR”). (See supplemental authority R. Doc.278) He withdrew from the case before the opposition to a proposed protective order was filed, PPAR Doc. 179 and 217 respectively. But presumably, the then Solicitor General was intimately involved in strategy planning and read the protective order from Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas Family Planning and Preventative Health Services, Inc, et al., v. Charles Smith, et al., USDC TXWD Case No. 1:15-CV-01058-SS (“PPTX”) attached as Exhibit A, R. Doc.217-1. The District Court allowed confidentiality in this case that his colleagues at the Attorney General’s Office argue is bad for the People.

4. The District Court Condoned Abuse of the Protective Order

     The restrictions on public access offered in the PO were not appropriate in the first place and then were expanded and administered incorrectly, above my numerous objections. Objections can be found in R. Docs. 24, 30, 54, 65, 68, 79, 161, 162, 163, 173…(Affidavit ¶ 30)

     At the hearing on my opposition to the proposed PO, the Court answered my inquiry into what cannot be designated confidential.^[2] His discourse alleviated my concerns that I specified in my written opposition to the protective order (R. Doc. 30, especially at 4 to 6). (Affidavit ¶¶ 31, 32) See ¶ 30 (“Order paragraph 12 shifts the burden the legislature put onto the party who wants confidentiality to the opposing party.”) and ¶ 32 (“The party requesting a protective order must make a specific demonstration of facts in support of the request, as opposed to conclusory or speculative statements about the need for a protective order, and the harm which will be suffered without one. [citation]”).

     Then the Court did not uphold the promised restrictions.

     PRA gave no compelling reason for filing under seal or redacted. The Court’s “reason” for granting motions to file under seal was not sustainable. For example, “I am going to seal it, but not because I am making a substantive determination necessarily on the propriety of what is requested under seal in the motion for leave, just because for administrative ease, I don’t think that’s a big deal.” (R. Doc. 124, at 4) On the contrary, sealing documents is a big deal.

     PRA misstated PO ¶ 13 on each of its motions to file under seal:

     “The Protective Order states that any confidential material disclosed in any motion, brief, exhibit, or other filing with the Court should be filed under seal. [R. Doc. 46] at. [¶] 13.” (R. Doc.50, ¶ 2 for example)

     The actual PO, R. Doc. 46 at ¶ 13:

     “The parties shall endeavor not to include confidential discovery material as exhibits to filings or in any filed pleading with the Court except as to the extent necessary. To the extent that any confidential discovery material filed with the Court during this Suit is desired by the filing party to be placed under seal, it shall be so filed in compliance with the provisions of the Local Rules of this Court. Specifically, no party shall file a document under seal without first having obtained an order granting leave to file under seal on a showing of particularized need. Additionally, if practicable and for any filing under seal, the parties will comply with Fed. R. Civ. P. 5.2’s mandate. (Dkt. No. 23, ¶ 5).”

    The PO does not say that any confidential material “should” be filed under seal. It allows for a motion for a court order based on particularized need.

     Conclusionary statements like those proffered by PRA should not suffice. The Court allowed PRA to file documents under seal based on one generic paragraph in its procession of motions to file under seal.

     For example, R. Doc.50, ¶ 1: “In response to Plaintiff, Laura Lynn Hammett’s (“Plaintiff”), Partial Motion for Summary Judgment (Dkt.37), PRA will be filing its Opposition brief on December 13, 2021 and will be attaching exhibits and disclosing information from materials that have been designated as Confidential under the Protective Order (Dkt. 46).”

      The transcript redactions were not allowable either, for various reasons. One example: PRA gave an alleged explanation of why it set the alleged debt to zero. R. Doc. 157, at 40-41. The redacted version is R. Doc. 193. The explanation was ludicrous, as PRA did not follow the alleged secret policy for any of the other plaintiffs in the ARED cases and it is not the same as PRA’s written policy. (Bates Number PRA_HAMMETT_000338. R. Doc. 68, at 139) Support for my contention was given at R. Doc. 173, at 2. The District Court not only bought into PRA’s lie, it allowed the lie to be designated confidential. (Affidavit ¶ 16)

5. PRA’s Practices Should not be Emulated

     PRA was allowed to keep its telephone log and PRANet record confidential based on its claim that its competitors could profit from mimicking PRA’s business practices. Using PRA’s business practices is likely to be disastrous for its competitors. In March 2023, PRA agreed to its second settlement with the CFPB in 8 years, paying a $12,000,000 fine on top of $12M restitution for alleged collection activity without proper documentation, that violated the 2015 Consent Agreement, similar to PRA’s collection activity against me. (R. Doc 225 at 12) (Affidavit ¶ 33)

     PRA is a wholly owned subsidiary of PRA Group, Inc. The parent company’s stock value plummeted by about 57% from $42.56 per share on February 28, 2023 to as low as $18.00 September 22, 2023. (Affidavit ¶ 34)   

    PRA claims a reason for secrecy is to deter its competitors from plagiarizing PRA’s formats.

     Frankly, there is nothing ingenious or unique about the forms. For example, look at the telephone log. (R. Doc. 59 at 2 to 7) This is a run of the mill phone log.

     PRA’s competitors would be subject to copyright infringement if they made forms that mimicked PRA’s forms too closely.

6. PRA is Trying to Protect Inaccurate and Stale Information

     Another excuse given for PRA to designate its self-generated call log as confidential is that it doesn’t want competitors to know its calling pattern.

    The call logs are inaccurate. PRA claims the number of calls it made that went to voicemail, that don’t show up on my Verizon record, was much lower than my memory of the number of calls I received from September 2020 to February 2021.

     A comparison of documents that are currently under seal shows contradictions between the PRA Policy (R. Doc. 68, at 238, Bates No. PRA_HAMMETT_000437), PRA call log (R. Doc. 68, at 2, PRA_HAMMETT_201), the Verizon call log[3] (R. Doc. 166, Exhibit 4) and the PRANet record (R. Doc. 68, at 9, PRA_HAMMETT_000208). Here are a few examples, as I would present them to the jury or the public:

     First, read the PRA Policy cited above, first of three white bullet points in the bottom box that begins with the word “Every”.

     Now look at the second call on the PRA call log.

     Try to find documentation of that call on the PRANet record. You can’t.

     Let’s look at a call with a different outcome. Look at the Verizon call log for a call on December 9, 2020 at 12:42 p.m. It came in from 978.471.4567. The same call registered on the PRA call log. (Remember to add an hour.) There is no documentation of a call on PRANet for December 9, 2020. That seems to be a violation of PRA Policy.

     In fact, there is no documentation on PRANet for any calls between 11/18/2020 and 2/18/2021. There are plenty of recorded conversations between those dates.

     There were two calls documented on the Verizon call log between PRA and my cell phone on February 11, 2021 at 6:48 and 6:49 p.m. The incoming call was up to 1 minute from (760) 823-3149. I returned the call immediately after, for another 1 minute or less.

     The PRA call log shows no call from me to PRA at 7:49. It does not show that I answered a call that day. PRANet shows no call for that day.

     A representative at Verizon told me that calls that go to my voicemail don’t show up on the Verizon call log. I verified that as correct for several of the calls that PRA call log shows as going to voicemail. They don’t show up on the Verizon log. For example, look for a call on PRA call log for November 29, 2020. There is a call at the same date and time on the Verizon log. But that was me calling my son.

     The phone log provided by PRA shows 29 calls connected (not including voicemail). There are only 6 notations of connected calls during the same time frame on the PRANet record.

     The Justices will probably want to see if what I just said is true. The public would want to see it for themselves also.

     Competitors cannot know PRA’s calling pattern from PRA’s log. The log is inaccurate. The pattern is different for calls made to my landline and my cell phone. The pattern shown is different from my memory. The pattern violates Regulation F, so PRA should not repeat its pattern.

     PRA whited out the price on the bill of sale. Even if PRA is compelled to disclose the price, the stale information from 2013 cannot benefit a competitor.

7. Reversing Privacy Designations is an Appropriate Sanction for Spoliation of Evidence 

     In PRA v. Mejia, Missouri Court of Appeals, WD 79175, the lower court ordered severe spoliation sanctions against PRA. Mejia was represented by able counsel. The Court found PRA liable without a trial and only let the jury decide damages.

     Once a request is made for retention of evidence, subsequent destruction will not be tolerated and a document retention policy will not act as a shield. Stevenson v. Union Pac. R.R., Co., 354 F.3d 739, 746-50 (8th Cir. 2004). There may also be a duty to create and preserve evidence where standard procedures and public policy require the creation of a document. Smith v. United States, 128 F. Supp. 2d 1227, 1233-34 (E.D. Ark. 2000) (court made adverse inference under spoliation doctrine where physician failed to dictate post-surgical note).

     There must be a finding of intentional destruction indicating a desire to suppress truth. Lewy, 836 F.2d at 1111-12.; Rodgers v. CWR Constr., Inc., 33 S.W.3d 506 (Ark. 2000); Goff, 27 S.W.3d at 389. There must also be a finding of prejudice to the opposing party. Stevenson, 354 F.3d at 748. PRA had a desire to suppress the truth. Seeing the indisputable evidence that its records were inaccurate, PRA devised a false narrative that it called a “motion for summary judgment”, based on erroneous records hidden from public scrutiny. Tragically, the Court betrayed the trust of the people. The only supposedly neutral party who would ever see the records, the Court concluded PRA’s tall tales were true.

8. There is a Strong Presumption of Public Access to Court Records

     A district “court may, ‘for good cause, issue an order to protect a party or person from annoyance embarrassment, oppression, or undue burden or expense.’ Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(c)(l). The ‘requirement of a showing of good cause to support the issuance of a protective order indicates that “the burden is upon the movant to show the necessity of its issuance, which contemplates a particular and specific demonstration of fact as distinguished from stereotyped and conclusory statements.’” In re Terra Int’l, 134 F.3d 302,306 (5th Cir. 1998) (quoting United States v. Garrett, 571 F. 2d 1323, 1326 n.3 (5th Cir. 1978)); see also In re Violation of Rule 28(D), 635 F.3d 1352, 1358 (Fed. Cir. 2011) (‘Parties frequently abuse Rule 26(c) by seeking protective orders for material not covered by the rule.’).” (quoting PPAR)

     “’[T]here is a stark difference between so-called “protective orders” entered pursuant to the discovery provisions of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26, on the one hand, and orders to seal [judicial] records, on the other.’ Shane Grp., Inc. v. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Mich., 825 F.3d 299, 305 (6th Cir. 2016). ‘[T]he common-law right of access applies to judicial records in civil proceedings.’ IDT Corp. v. eBay, 709 F.3d 1220, 1222 (8th Cir. 2013). Courts recognize a ‘strong presumption in favor of openness’ as to court records. Shane Grp., Inc, 825 F.3d at 299 (quoting Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. v. F.T.C., 710 F.2d 1165, 1179 (6th Cir. 1983)). ‘Only the most compelling reasons can justify non-disclosure of judicial records.’ In re Knoxville News-Sentinel Co., 723 F.2d 470,476 (6th Cir. 1983). (quoting PPAR)

9. The Circuit Court May Make Less Restrictive Protections Against Disclosure

     F.T.C. v. AbbVie Products LLC, 713 F.3d 54, 62-71, 2013-1 Trade Cas. (CCH) ¶ 78315 (11th Cir. 2013) (exhibit attached to a complaint was a “judicial record” because the complaint was a “judicial record” therefore a strong presumption of public access applied and the district court did not abuse its discretion in granting a motion to unseal the exhibit attached to an FTC complaint challenging a patentee’s reverse settlement payment.)

     Patents have more reason for confidentiality than the common business records pertaining to an individual account.

     Quoting from Hyatt v. Lee, F. Supp. 3d, 2017 WL 1737630, *1-*4 (D.D.C. 2017) “While not all the documents [the designating party] wishes to have sealed are equivalent with respect to their impact on judicial decision-making, many of these documents were the very ones filed by or relied upon by the parties. The public interest in these documents is heightened because they allow the public to understand the rulings as well as the contours of the disputes between the parties.[] Currently,” PRA has “not adequately identified the harms associated with disclosing various documents.” PRA “makes broad statements to justify redactions.” In Hyatt, the Court said “[f]or example, the very first item on Mr. Hyatt’s table of justifications seems to redact over 40 pages of a memorandum supporting a motion for summary judgment for two stated reasons: ‘PTO application file to remain confidential under 35 U.S.C. § 122’ and ‘Valuable Trade Secrets.’ As stated above, and as conceded by Mr. Hyatt, that the PTO must keep documents in confidence does not mean the Court must seal a motion for summary judgment. The contours of secrecy and confidentiality when [] challenging the PTO’s decision in a Federal Court are not coterminous. Moreover, ‘valuable trade secrets’ is insufficient to explain over forty pages of redactions.”

     Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Inc. v. Technology Research Gp., LLC, F. Supp.2d, 2011 WL 3510934, *3–*4 (N.D. Ill. Aug. 9, 2011) (granting motion to unseal an invalidity summary judgment motion for later use in a reexamination proceeding since good cause had not been show to maintain the confidentiality of the court papers—“Once a protective order is entered, a party must continue to show good cause for confidentiality when challenged. ‘If a party does not show good cause to justify the ongoing concealment of certain information, the protective order may be dissolved or modified to unseal that information.’ In this case, CME has failed to satisfy its heavy burden of establishing that it would suffer a ‘clearly defined and serious injury’ if the filings and documents associated with its motion for summary judgment of invalidity are unsealed. In its response to TRG’s motion, the only injury that is presented to the Court is the following: ‘it is readily apparent that CME operates in a highly competitive field and public dissemination of information about CME’s business operations and technical information would subject CME to an undue risk of commercial or competitive harm. Good cause therefore exists for maintaining all of these [documents] under seal.’ Such a generalized claim of injury is insufficient to establish good cause under Rule 26. Specific examples or articulated reasoning must be provided to satisfy Rule 26’s good cause requirement. CME’s broad assertion of a competitive injury thus clearly falls short of this requirement. Because good cause has not been established, the filings and documents associated with CME’s motion for summary judgment of invalidity can be properly unsealed.)

     “The right of access is not limited to evidence,⁹ and applies to various material, such as [] exhibits¹⁶ and transcripts.¹⁷ The transcript of a judicial proceeding is so closely related to the ability to attend the proceeding itself that maintaining secrecy is appropriate only if closing the courtroom was appropriate.¹⁸” [4](§ 83. Particular types of court records, 76 C.J.S. Records § 83)

    “With respect to appeals, the strong presumption of public disclosure applies only to the materials that formed the basis of the parties’ dispute and the lower court’s resolution” (§ 83. Particular types of court records citing Baxter Intern., Inc. v. Abbott Laboratories, 297 F.3d 544, 52 Fed. R. Serv. 3d 1132 (7th Cir. 2002)) “The common law presumption of access to judicial records and documents does not attach to documents filed in connection with a motion to dismiss and excluded by the court because those documents do not play any role in the district court’s adjudication of the motion to dismiss.” (id. citing Trustees of Purdue University v. Wolfspeed, Inc., 620 F. Supp. 3d 393 (M.D. N.C. 2022).

     The District Court did not exclude any of the documents under seal from its decision making process, though it should have. The public must be able to see that a court is ignoring blatant falsification of business documents and blatant perjury by an official of a wholly owned subsidiary of a publicly traded company that has a billion dollars in assets and $2.6 billion in access to credit.

     “Giving a party carte blanche to designate as confidential any information it pleases renders the proposed order improperly overbroad. See Citizens First Nat ‘l Bank of Princeton v. Cincinnati Ins. Co., 178 F.3d 943, 945 (7th Cir. 1999) (holding invalid protective orders “giving each party carte blanche to decide what portions of the record shall be kept secret”).” (quoting PPAR)

     “The Protective Order does not define ambiguous terms such as ‘confidential’ or ‘sensitive,’ thereby giving [PRA] the ability to deem anything they wish confidential. Under the terms of the Protective Order, information is ‘confidential’ simply on [PRA’s] say-so.” (id.)

I, Laura Lynn Hammett, Plaintiff in pro se, beg this Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to unseal all documents designated by PRA as confidential, except those it can give reason to leave out of the public’s view in its opposition. I ask for leave to rescind my own confidential designation of all except my medical records and the expert witness report and rebuttal.  

Respectfully submitted,

October 4, 2023

Laura Lynn Hammett                                                

Bohemian_books@yahoo.com

Plaintiff Pro Se

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[1] Because sealed documents are not available on PACER, I might be off about electronic page numbers and will use Bates Numbers as a secondary citation.

[2] That dialogue was omitted from the transcript. See R. Doc.267, motion to settle the record at p.2 to 4. The Court denied the inaccuracy based in part upon listening to “the audio recording”, (R. Doc. 279, at 2), despite the Court Reporter telling me in writing that he had no recording. A motion to settle the record in the Eighth Circuit is forthcoming.

[3] PRA did not provide a call log from a third-party Telephone Service Provider. I asked for the Verizon call log to be confidential to protect third parties. I agree to lift the confidentiality.

[4] Citations were by hyperlinked footnote. 9. U.S. v. Martin, 746 F.2d 964 (3d Cir. 1984); 16. 2 citations omitted. United States ex rel. Barko v. Halliburton Company, 4 F. Supp. 3d 161 (D.D.C. 2014) 17. Georgia American Ins. Co. v. Varnum, 182 Ga. App. 907, 357 S.E.2d 609 (1987) 18. Newsday LLC v. County of Nassau, 730 F.3d 156 (2d Cir. 2013)