When Should Records Be Sealed in Employment Discrimination Cases?

Sealed_record Thanks to friend of the blog, Jack Sargent, for pointing me to this fascinating dispute before the U.S Supreme Court now concerning the sealing of a record in an employment discrimination case.

From the reporters committee for freedom of the press blog:

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press today filed a brief asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review a decision that allowed all records in a federal employment discrimination case to be hidden from the public. The Reporters Committee filed the brief on behalf of itself and 29 other leading media organizations.

The friend-of-the-court brief was filed in support of The Legal Intelligencer, which petitioned the Supreme Court for review after the Third Circuit Court of Appeals rejected its request to intervene in Doe v. C.A.R.S. Protection Plus Inc. The newspaper sought to unseal the docket and record in Doe, a case in which the plaintiff claimed she was wrongly fired because she had an abortion.

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The Impact of the Economic Collapse on U.S. Employee Benefits

Medical_symbol2 One of the less followed stories during the economic collapse is its potential impact on the employee benefits of employees in the United States.  Not only will workers lose a substantial part of their pensions because of the falling price of securities in their 401(k) accounts, but there might even be a bigger problem discussed in this article from Columbus Business First:

As a national debate over the future of the nation’s health-care system swirls, a new report from a liberal think tank indicates fewer working-age Americans, including Ohioans, are being covered under employer-sponsored health plans.

A briefing paper from the Washington, D.C.-based Economic Policy Institute, titled The Erosion of Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance, shows employer coverage for workers and their families dropped for the seventh consecutive year. About 63 percent of Americans, or 164.5 million, under age 65 were covered in 2007, about 3 million workers fewer than in 2000, during which about 68 percent were covered.

Employer-sponsored insurance coverage for working-age Ohioans fell at a similar rate over the decade. Last year, 6.8 million Ohioans, or nearly 69 percent, were covered by their employers, down more than 400,000 from 7.2 million, or 74 percent, six years earlier.

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The Wisconsin Supreme Court Amends Its Rules to Permit Citation of Unpublished Opinions, with Limitations

As you probably already know, yesterday the Wisconsin Supreme Court heard the petition of the Wisconsin Judicial Council to amend Wisconsin Statue section 809.23(3), to permit citation of unpublished Wisconsin Court of Appeals opinions as persuasive authority.

Beth Hanan, managing member of Gass Weber Mullins and Vice Chair of the Wisconsin Judicial Council, kindly offered the following summary of the hearing and the court’s decision to amend the rule.  (Please note that these are Beth’s own, individual comments and are not the comments or thoughts of the Judicial Council.)

Taking a cautious step into a national trend, yesterday the Wisconsin Supreme Court voted 6:1 to permit citation of unpublished authored appellate decisions, with several limitations.  Amended Wis. Stat. (Rule) s. 809.23(3), like Fed. R. App. P. 32.1, will be prospective only.  This means that parties and courts will be able to cite those unpublished authored opinions which are released on or after the planned effective date of the amended rule, July 1, 2009.  When parties cite such opinions, they will have to file and serve copies of the opinions.  The rule specifically will  provide that parties are not required to cite unpublished opinions.  Finally, the supreme court has ordered that a committee be formed to plan the roll out of the rule and devise a means of tracking its effectiveness or particular difficulties it may create.  Those statistics will be used by the court to review the rule three years after its adoption.

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