Anderson v. Home Insurance Co.2/22/1996
Yolanda Martinez appeals the district court's denial of her motion, pursuant to C.R.C.P. 121 § 1-5, to vacate a limited access order entered in this and a related action, in neither of which was she a party. We reverse the denial of her motion, vacate the existing limited access order, and remand with directions.
The record on appeal includes the records in the two cases that are the subject of the limited access order, the entirety of which has been sealed in accordance with that order. In addition, the defendant, Frederick A. Lewis, Jr., and his professional corporation, have filed a "supplemental brief" with this court, a copy of which has not been provided to Martinez, which makes various references to that part of the record that Martinez has never seen.
Under these circumstances, we have limited our review of the record to that portion that has been disclosed to Martinez, and we have not considered Lewis' supplemental brief. We have considered only the court's initial order sealing all of the court files, the motion to vacate the limited access order, the transcript of the hearing on Martinez' motion, the court's order denying Martinez's motion, Martinez' motion to reconsider, and the court's order denying reconsideration. We have, of course, also considered Martinez' briefs and that brief submitted by Lewis, a copy of which was supplied to Martinez.
This review reveals the following:
Plaintiff, Margot Anderson, initiated the action at issue here against defendants, Dr. Frederick A. Lewis, Jr., Frederick A. Lewis, Jr., M.D., P.C., and The Home Insurance Company, which included, so Martinez alleges, a claim of medical malpractice against Lewis based, in part, on his use of computerized neuropsychological testing. A second case was a related probate proceeding.
In August 1993, the district court granted the parties' joint motion to dismiss the malpractice action with prejudice and to prevent access by any third person to any part of the court files in both cases. In the limited access order, entered pursuant to C.R.C.P. 121 § 1-5, the court found that "good cause has been shown for sealing and restricting access to the Court's files in these cases . . . ."; that "the parties have bargained for and agreed to extensive confidentiality, non-disclosure, related enforcement . . . ."; and that "the privacy interests of the parties outweighs the public interest in access to the Court files herein." The court's order, however, does not reveal even the general nature of the parties' privacy interests that required such protection, and that order was, itself, subject to its own limited access restrictions.
Simultaneously, the court "adopted and approved" the parties' settlement agreement, which it also sealed. That agreement included confidentiality and non-disclosure provisions, and the court directed that these provisions were to be enforced, if necessary, through contempt proceedings.
Approximately one year later, Martinez moved, pursuant to C.R.C.P. 121 § 1-5.4, for the court to vacate its order limiting access to the files. She alleged that she was the plaintiff in an action against another insurance company for wrongfully denying insurance benefits to her, based, in part, on examinations given by Lewis; that Lewis had performed computerized neuropsychological testing in her case that was identical to the testing used on the plaintiff in the Anderson case; that such testing methods by Lewis were invalid; that he was not qualified to use or to interpret, and he had been ordered to cease, such testing by the Colorado Board of Medical Examiners in 1990; but that h
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