United States District Court, D. Arizona
ORDER
DOMINIC W. LANZA UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
The
Court has reviewed Plaintiff's motion to proceed under
pseudonym. (Doc. 57.) As an initial matter, the Court wishes
to apologize to the parties for overlooking, in its order
requiring supplemental briefing, that this topic had already
been briefed when the case was assigned to a different judge.
This was an unfortunate oversight.
In any
event, although the previous judge issued a short order
granting Plaintiff's motion to proceed (Doc. 30), it is
the Court's view that a more detailed order is warranted
in light of the public's presumptive right to know the
identities of parties litigating in federal court. The Court
will not require the parties to submit further briefing,
however, because they have already made their positions
clear. And as discussed below, the Court will reaffirm
through this order that Plaintiff may litigate under a
pseudonym (and that the parties' proposed protective
order (Doc. 55-1) may therefore be granted).
As
noted in the order requiring supplemental briefing (Doc. 56),
the rule in the Ninth Circuit is that a party may
“proceed anonymously” only in an “unusual
case” in which “special circumstances justify
secrecy.” Does I thru XXIII v. Advanced Textile
Corp., 214 F.3d 1058, 1067-68 (9th Cir. 2000) (citation
omitted). The Ninth Circuit has further clarified when a
party wishes to proceed under a pseudonym in an effort to
avoid “retaliation, ” which is Doe's
rationale here, “the district court should determine
the need for anonymity by evaluating the following factors:
(1) the severity of the threatened harm, (2) the
reasonableness of the anonymous party's fears, and (3)
the anonymous party's vulnerability to such retaliation.
The court must also determine the precise prejudice at each
stage of the proceedings to the opposing party, and whether
proceedings may be structured so as to mitigate that
prejudice. Finally, the court must decide whether the
public's interest in the case would be best served by
requiring that the litigants reveal their identities.”
Id. at 1068 (citations omitted).
Here,
the first factor-the severity of the threatened harm-supports
Doe's request. As Doe persuasively argues in his brief,
“it is difficult to imagine a more stigmatizing label
than being branded as engaging in sexual violence, a stigma
that is shown to remain even if a court ultimately finds the
charges are baseless.” (Doc. 57 at 2-3.)
The
second and third factors-the reasonableness of the anonymous
party's fears and the anonymous party's vulnerability
to retaliation-also support Doe's request. Doe has
identified several other recent cases in which students
seeking to challenge the processes by which they were found
to have engaged in sexual misconduct were subjected to
significant ostracization and threats. (Doc. 57 at 3-5.)
These other incidents show that Doe's fears here are
reasonable and not hypothetical.
The
Court also agrees with Doe that allowing him to proceed
anonymously will not result in any prejudice to Defendants,
who are aware of his identity and don't oppose his
request to proceed as a John Doe. (Doc. 57 at 5.)
The
final factor to consider is whether the public has a
countervailing interest in knowing Doe's true identity.
On this issue, the Court disagrees with Doe's assertion
that the public has no interest in knowing his name. (Doc. 57
at 6.) It has long been the rule “that judicial
proceedings, civil as well as criminal, are to be conducted
in public” and that “[i]dentifying the parties to
the proceeding is an important dimension of publicness. The
people have a right to know who is using their courts.”
Doe v. Megless, 654 F.3d 404, 408 (3d Cir. 2011)
(citations and internal quotation marks omitted). Thus, the
Ninth Circuit has recognized that the “use of
fictitious names runs afoul of the public's common law
right of access to judicial proceedings.” Advanced
Textile Corp., 214 F.3d at 1067. The Court also notes
that Doe has not attempted to reconcile his request with some
of the arguably contradictory cases identified in the order
requiring supplemental briefing- specifically, (1) the
handful of recent cases in which similarly-situated
plaintiffs were apparently not allowed to proceed under
pseudonyms[1] and (2) the Tenth Circuit's decision
in Coe v. United States District Court for the District
of Colorado, 676 F.2d 411 (10th Cir. 1982), which can be
interpreted as holding that anonymity isn't appropriate
in this circumstance.
Nevertheless,
even though the public has a legitimate interest in knowing
Doe's identity, that interest has been overcome in this
case by the fact that Doe is vulnerable to, and reasonably
fears, severe harm if his identity is disclosed and in light
of the fact that Defendants won't suffer any prejudice
from Doe proceeding anonymously.
Accordingly,
IT IS ORDERED that:
(1)
Plaintiffs motion to proceed under pseudonym (Doc. 57) is
granted;
(2) The
parties' request for a protective order (Doc. 55) is
granted; and
(3) The
actual protective order will be ...