Rule 90.1.Records; privacy

The privacy rule for a court whose files are full of the most private things people have.

Nothing is released before service. Without the court's permission, no complaint or other paper instituting an action, and no paper ordered to be served, may be released for examination or publication by the Clerk or the sheriff until a return showing service on all designated parties is made. Where service is on a nonresident, the material is held for at least 10 days after any required mailing. A respondent should learn of a case from the process server, not from a stranger.

The files are private. Unless a statute or rule requires otherwise, all records of proceedings before the court are private and are available only to the court and its staff; the parties and their attorneys; other courts and public agencies; and persons the court specifically approves because they have a legitimate interest — subject in every case to whatever restrictions or conditions the court imposes.

That is the opposite of the ordinary civil default, where a file is open unless someone shows a reason to close it. Here the file is closed and access is granted, and the approval route means a researcher, a relative or a reporter asks the court rather than the counter.

Location information. The court may restrict access to and dissemination of residential and employment addresses from people reasonably believed to pose a substantial risk of harm. Anyone filing for Protection from Abuse may have their location information designated confidential on demand — no motion, no showing. Parties in other cases ask by motion, which is treated as granted unless and until it is denied, so protection begins immediately rather than at the hearing.

The designation lasts indefinitely until the court orders otherwise or it is given up. A judicial officer may assign it where appropriate, and may remove it on the protected party's oral request in open court. Putting a personal mailing address on a later pleading in the same case may be read as saying the protection is no longer needed — a warning worth heeding.

The other side of it. A protected party must still give the court a working mailing address, which need not be where they live; the court pays for the mailings that protection makes necessary. And where venue or jurisdiction turns on where someone is, the court may examine the protected records in camera and reveal only what the other side needs to make its argument. Safety and a fair hearing are both served, and neither is asked to give way entirely.