Company Doe v Public Citizen Court Requires Proceedings to be Open t
Company Doe v. Public Citizen, Court Requires Proceedings to be Open t... Legal Advocacy
A few months later, a company calling itself “Company Doe” sued the CPSC to keep a complaint about one of its products out of the database. A federal district court granted Company Doe’s motion to proceed under seal. Three consumer organizations (Public Citizen, Consumer Federation of America and Consumers Union) intervened in the case and objected to the seal. In 2012, the court denied the consumer groups’ motion to lift the seal, and after a full, closed-door trial, exonerated Company Doe’s product. The opinion made public was significantly redacted, so it shed no light on the key facts or expert opinions that supported the court’s conclusions.
The CPSC and Company Doe reached a settlement, and the CPSC did not appeal. The consumer groups nevertheless appealed the court’s secrecy orders. Company Doe sought to dismiss the appeal arguing the case was moot because the CPSC did not appeal.
AARP Foundation Litigation attorneys filed AARP’s friend-of-the-court brief which reviewed the importance of public databases in empowering knowledgeable and proactive consumers, encouraging business competition, and assisting regulators to identify problems and trends in a timely manner so as to prevent additional harm. AARP’s brief provided examples of public complaint databases proven to be effective in improving product quality and safety and enhancing regulatory oversight. The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration’s safercar.gov spurred automobile manufacturers to build safer cars in order to compete for customers and is credited with helping identify problems with Firestone tires that caused over 800 injuries, including 271 deaths. The Food and Drug Administration’s med watch database alerted regulators to hidden dangers of medications that have not, and likely cannot be detected during small clinical trials. The FTC’s Consumer Sentinel database helps law enforcement agencies target transitory fraud schemes that would be impossible to detect without evaluation of consumer complaints. Nursing home quality has improved substantially as a result of the information provided through Nursing Home Compare, maintained by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Consumer complaints about financial products and services are being addressed more efficiently since the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau began posting complaints online.
In a lengthy and thoughtful opinion, the fourth circuit ruled that the public enjoys a right of access to the information under the first amendment and the court detailed the harm that would be caused to the public interest if anonymity were allowed, and re-captioned the Company Doe name as “The Ergo Baby Carrier Inc.” Finally, the appeals court took the trial court to task for sealing the documents during the pendency of the litigation.
Court Requires Proceedings to be Open to Public
Read AARP's (PDF) AARP had urged a court to protect public access to product safety complaints in the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) database. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit agreed.Background br
Following the recall of 20 million hazardous toys in 2008, congress passed a law to better inform consumers of potentially hazardous products. In 2011, the CPSC began maintaining a publicly accessible electronic database alerting consumers to potential dangers and allowing researchers to focus efforts to evaluate the safety of products much earlier than they otherwise could.A few months later, a company calling itself “Company Doe” sued the CPSC to keep a complaint about one of its products out of the database. A federal district court granted Company Doe’s motion to proceed under seal. Three consumer organizations (Public Citizen, Consumer Federation of America and Consumers Union) intervened in the case and objected to the seal. In 2012, the court denied the consumer groups’ motion to lift the seal, and after a full, closed-door trial, exonerated Company Doe’s product. The opinion made public was significantly redacted, so it shed no light on the key facts or expert opinions that supported the court’s conclusions.
The CPSC and Company Doe reached a settlement, and the CPSC did not appeal. The consumer groups nevertheless appealed the court’s secrecy orders. Company Doe sought to dismiss the appeal arguing the case was moot because the CPSC did not appeal.
AARP Foundation Litigation attorneys filed AARP’s friend-of-the-court brief which reviewed the importance of public databases in empowering knowledgeable and proactive consumers, encouraging business competition, and assisting regulators to identify problems and trends in a timely manner so as to prevent additional harm. AARP’s brief provided examples of public complaint databases proven to be effective in improving product quality and safety and enhancing regulatory oversight. The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration’s safercar.gov spurred automobile manufacturers to build safer cars in order to compete for customers and is credited with helping identify problems with Firestone tires that caused over 800 injuries, including 271 deaths. The Food and Drug Administration’s med watch database alerted regulators to hidden dangers of medications that have not, and likely cannot be detected during small clinical trials. The FTC’s Consumer Sentinel database helps law enforcement agencies target transitory fraud schemes that would be impossible to detect without evaluation of consumer complaints. Nursing home quality has improved substantially as a result of the information provided through Nursing Home Compare, maintained by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Consumer complaints about financial products and services are being addressed more efficiently since the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau began posting complaints online.
In a lengthy and thoughtful opinion, the fourth circuit ruled that the public enjoys a right of access to the information under the first amendment and the court detailed the harm that would be caused to the public interest if anonymity were allowed, and re-captioned the Company Doe name as “The Ergo Baby Carrier Inc.” Finally, the appeals court took the trial court to task for sealing the documents during the pendency of the litigation.