Grae v. Corrections Corp. of America

In this case, Public Citizen represents the Nashville Banner, which is seeking to unseal documents filed in a case against a company called CoreCivic that operates private prisons and detention facilities. Following a 2016 review by the Department of Justice’s Office of Inspector General finding that CoreCivic facilities had significant safety and security issues, CoreCivic’s stock price plummeted, and shareholders filed a lawsuit alleging that the company had violated federal securities law. During the litigation, hundreds of documents were filed under seal.

The Nashville Banner moved to intervene for the purpose of moving to unseal the court filings. The district court granted the Banner’s motion to intervene, and it granted in part and denied in part the Banner’s motion to unseal. Among other things, the court denied unsealing of nearly two dozen deposition transcripts filed by the parties, stating that CoreCivic’s assertion that the transcripts contained confidential information and the court’s interest in encouraging the parties to file complete transcripts justified the sealing of the transcripts. Representing the Nashville Banner on appeal, we argue that the district court erred in denying unsealing of the deposition transcripts, in light of the public right to access court filings and the strong presumption in favor of court openness.