of particular interest regarding 56.01(c) from a Plaintiff's perspective, in part:
"Most often, defendants argue that the information and documents sought to be protected involve “trade secrets”, and thus it would be a detriment to their company and/or products to force them to make public these valuable documents.
It is important to note that confidentiality occurs at two different times during litigation. The
first, and the one that will be given the most attention in this article, is the sealing of discovery documents by courts. The
second, involves settlement agreements, and the stipulation put on parties to that agreement to maintain secrecy. These agreements are contracts between the parties, thus the parties can generally set their own terms, and the agreements can be written to provide overwhelming protection, including limiting all disclosure regarding the litigation, or can be written very narrowly, protecting only things such as settlement amount, or certain documents.
While one may ask why a plaintiff would enter into such an agreement, knowing that binding oneself to secrecy will put members of the general public at risk, it is important to know that faced with the possibility of years of litigation, possibly costing millions of dollars, some plaintiff’s have no choice but to enter the agreement and dispose of their case.
This article will outline the current Missouri law with regard to the issuance of protective orders, present a recent bill presented to the Missouri Senate attempting to restrict the use of protective orders (continued at link)
See decisions in Wright v. Campbell and Blue Cross v. Anderson and the author's commentary of the decisions in cited cases below:
"According to Missouri Supreme Court Rule 56.01,
a party attempting to be issued a protective order must only satisfy the court that good cause exists to protect the documents or information, but it appears as if the development of common law has heightened that requirement, by requiring a showing of a “compelling justification” that the records should be closed, and requiring courts to identify “specific and tangible threats to important values” in order to override the presumption of openness. Pulitzer at 301-02."
http://www.mmmpalaw.com/CM/Articles/Articles61.asp
While the commentary seems to focus primarily on consumers and protection of "trade secrets," the same rules of discovery apply to protective orders regardless of defendant's "good cause" burden under 56:01(c)