Eugene Mercer v. Edward Blanchette (2010)

MEMORANDUM OF DECISION ON MOTION TO SEAL OR USE PSEUDONYM

The plaintiff, a self-represented inmate housed at the Osborne Correctional Institution, moves to seal the file in this case.   In the alternative, he moves that he be allowed to use a pseudonym in this case, brought for damages against the Clinical Director of the State Department of Corrections.   The basis of the plaintiff's motion rests on a personal health issue:  he is infected with the HIV virus.   Ordinarily such a highly personal issue would not present a difficult decision for the court, and the court would grant the motion absent an overriding public interest in the public dissemination of the information.   This situation is far from ordinary, however, and the court finds that the public interest in access to the information substantially overrides the plaintiff's articulated privacy interests.

First of all, the court notes that the plaintiff did not commence this action with a request for use of a pseudonym.   See Conn. P.B. § 11-20A(h)(2).   That alone does not persuade the court to deny the motion however, especially in light Conn. P.B. § 11-20a(h)(3) that allows the court to consider such a motion after the commencement of the action, without reference to whether an ex parte order permitting the use of a pseudonym had previously been entered.

Second, the plaintiff's health status as HIV-positive has so frequently been a part of the public record in other lawsuits that the plaintiff's own interest in the confidentiality of that information has been diluted to the point of non-existence.   The plaintiff's HIV status is mentioned and in most cases constitutes a central fact of the following reported appellate cases:  State v. Mercer, 208 Conn. 52, 544 A.2d 611 (1988);  Mercer v. Commissioner of Correction, 31 Conn.App. 771, 626 A.2d 831 (1993);  Mercer v. Commissioner of Correction, 230 Conn. 88, 644 A.2d 340 (1994);  Mercer v. Commissioner of Correction, 49 Conn.App. 819, 717 A.2d 763 (1998);  Mercer v. Cosley, 110 Conn.App. 283, 955 A.2d 550 (2008).   The plaintiff's HIV status is not specifically mentioned in the following cases, but is couched in terms of discrimination on the basis of his disability:  Mercer v. Rodriquez, 83 Conn.App. 251, 849 A.2d 886 (2004);  Mercer v. Strange, 96 Conn.App. 123, 899 A.2d 683 (2006).

Third, in balancing the right of the public to be aware of the workings of the Judicial Branch against the right to privacy of the plaintiff, this court finds that the former decidedly outweighs the latter.   Without expressing any view of whether the plaintiff's complaints against various state officials or private parties were or are meritorious, the fact that a single inmate has so often been involved in litigation in the Superior Court and in appeals to the Appellate Court and the Supreme Court of this state must be seen as a matter of public interest, including an interest in knowing the name of the party who so frequently avails himself of the state court as a forum.

Given that the plaintiff also has regularly used the very issue of his HIV status as a grounds for his claims for relief, and that he has consistently done so in state court without requesting the veil of a pseudonym, to permit him to proceed via pseudonym now essentially creates a subterfuge that interferes with a full and fair evaluation by the public of the difficult and demanding work of our courts in this type of litigation.

Weighing the factors prescribed by Conn. P.B. § 11-20A(h)(1), this court finds that the plaintiff's motion, entitled Motion for Order of Sealed File or Use of Pseudonym (# 105), must be and is hereby denied.

Patty Jenkins Pittman, Judge

Pittman, Patty Jenkins, J.