Wealth and NDAs Do Not Justify Closing Civil Trials or Proceeding Pseudonymously at Trial: Reaffirming the Presumption of Open Courts

Case: Doe v. Smith (1st Cir. Sept. 15, 2026)  |  Court: U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit

1. Introduction

In Doe v. Smith, the First Circuit confronted an increasingly common modern collision: privately negotiated secrecy (here, an NDA surrounding an ultra-high-profile lottery win) versus the judiciary’s institutional commitment to transparency. John Doe—winner of a $1.35 billion Maine State Lottery jackpot—sued Sara Smith (the mother of his minor child) for allegedly breaching an NDA that restricted disclosure of his identity and financial details. The case proceeded in federal court under diversity jurisdiction.

As trial approached, Doe sought extraordinary protections: (i) closure of the civil trial to the public, and alternatively (ii) continued use of pseudonyms through trial. He argued that public proceedings would defeat the very purpose of enforcing the NDA and would endanger privacy and safety, particularly for his minor daughter. The district court denied both requests in a detailed opinion. On appeal, the First Circuit affirmed, emphasizing the “paramount” value of open courts and finding no abuse of discretion.

2. Summary of the Opinion

On trial closure, the court reaffirmed that civil trials are presumptively open under longstanding common-law tradition and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Applying the balancing framework the parties agreed was appropriate, the court held Doe’s asserted privacy and safety interests did not overcome the presumption of openness—especially where the dispute was fundamentally about information whose disclosure would be central to adjudication.

On pseudonymity, the court applied its recent decision in Doe v. MIT and its “strong presumption against the use of pseudonyms in civil litigation.” Doe’s principal justification—risks flowing from sudden, great wealth—was deemed insufficiently “exceptional,” and concerns about the minor child were addressed through standard measures (identifying the child by initials) without granting pseudonymity to the adult litigants.

3. Analysis

3.1. Precedents Cited

A. Openness as the Baseline for Civil Trials

The First Circuit located its decision in a broader constitutional and common-law tradition of open judicial proceedings:

• Richmond Newspapers, Inc. v. Virginia, 448 U.S. 555, 580 n.17 (1980) (plurality opinion) — cited for the historical proposition that “both civil and criminal trials have been presumptively open.” Although Richmond Newspapers is best known for the First Amendment context in criminal trials, the First Circuit used it for its historical account of openness as a default.
• Gannett Co. v. DePasquale, 443 U.S. 368, 386 n.15 (1979) — invoked for the deep historical roots of public trials.
• Publicker Indus., Inc. v. Cohen, 733 F.2d 1059, 1066 (3d Cir. 1984) — cited for the proposition that the public’s right of access to civil trials and records is as established as in criminal cases; also relevant because it reversed an improper closure (a cautionary benchmark).
• Binh Hoa Le v. Exeter Fin. Corp., 990 F.3d 410, 418 (5th Cir. 2021) — used to underscore that openness predates Anglo-American law and is traceable to Roman “res publica” conceptions of trials as public affairs.

The court reinforced these themes through the Federal Rules: Rule 77(b) (“Every trial on the merits must be conducted in open court…”) and Rule 43(a) (“At trial, the witnesses’ testimony must be taken in open court…”). These were treated not as merely hortatory, but as procedural expressions of an entrenched transparency norm.

B. Balancing Access Against Privacy Interests

For the mechanics of balancing, the court relied on:

• United States v. Kravetz, 706 F.3d 47 (1st Cir. 2013) — though arising from a journalist’s motion to unseal documents in a criminal case, the court accepted (because the parties agreed) that Kravetz supplies a useful framework: the public’s access right is “vibrant” but not “unfettered,” and countervailing interests (including privacy) may overcome the presumption in particular instances. The First Circuit emphasized Kravetz factors such as whether the subject matter is “traditionally considered private,” and the “nature and degree of injury” from disclosure.
• Siedle v. Putnam Invs., Inc., 147 F.3d 7, 10 (1st Cir. 1998) — quoted via Kravetz for the proposition that trial courts have “considerable leeway” in deciding whether to restrict access.

Significantly, the First Circuit treated the case as one where the very “judicial record” (in the practical sense) would be the trial itself: the evidence and testimony “submitted… to aid in the adjudication,” and thus subject to the openness presumption. This functional view narrows the room for parties to argue that trial evidence is somehow categorically different from other judicial materials.

C. Closure as a Narrow, Fact-Specific Exception

Doe argued that some case law permits closure to protect confidentiality. The First Circuit distinguished rather than expanded those exceptions:

• Standard & Poor's Corp. v. Commodity Exch., Inc., 541 F. Supp. 1273 (S.D.N.Y. 1982) — treated as an example of limited closure (40–50 minutes) to protect trade secrets, not a license for full civil trial closure.
• Ospina v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., 975 F.2d 35 (2d Cir. 1992) — cited as another example of brief closure (discussion of anti-terrorism measures), again underscoring how constrained permissible closure typically is.
• In re T.R., 556 N.E.2d 439 (Ohio 1990) — identified as a juvenile-court case whose distinctive context makes it “apples-and-oranges” for an adult civil NDA enforcement dispute.

This comparative approach is doctrinally important: the court did not deny that exceptions exist; it clarified that exceptions generally arise where the protected information is narrow, the closure is limited, and/or the proceeding is of a special type (e.g., juvenile).

D. Pseudonymity and the First Circuit’s “Paradigms”

The court’s pseudonym analysis is anchored in:

• Doe v. MIT, 46 F.4th 61 (1st Cir. 2022) — the central authority establishing a “strong presumption against the use of pseudonyms in civil litigation,” allowing pseudonymity only in “exceptional cases.” MIT supplies four paradigms for when pseudonymity may be appropriate: (1) unusually severe harm; (2) harm to innocent non-parties; (3) chilling effect on similarly situated litigants; (4) connection to a prior proceeding made confidential by law. The First Circuit used these paradigms as an organizing framework while reiterating that the ultimate test remains the “totality of the circumstances.”
• Doe v. Town of Lisbon, 78 F.4th 38, 48 (1st Cir. 2023) — relied upon to emphasize that once a plaintiff files suit, common-law principles support a presumptive public right to know the plaintiff’s name; suing is not synonymous with a right to sue anonymously.

The court also referenced other pseudonym decisions to illustrate how different factual contexts (immigration danger, intimate identity concerns, Title IX reputational consequences) may justify different outcomes, including: In re Exch. Union Co., Patrick Collins, Inc. v. Does 1-38, Orr v. Trump, Doe v. U.S. Sec'y of State, and Doe v. Trs. of Bos. Univ.. These citations functioned less as controlling law and more as boundary markers: they show where “exceptional” circumstances are more concrete than generalized fears associated with wealth.

E. Rejecting “Liberty of Contract” as a Constitutional Trump Card

Doe attempted to constitutionalize his confidentiality interest by citing:

• Adkins v. Child. Hosp. of the D.C., 261 U.S. 525 (1923) — invoked by Doe for a “contractual privacy right,” but the First Circuit rejected this reliance because Adkins was expressly overruled by:
• W. Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish, 300 U.S. 379, 400 (1937) — cited for its explicit overruling of Adkins.

The opinion’s discussion of the “Lochner Era,” including references to Epic Sys. Corp. v. Lewis, 584 U.S. 497 (2018), and commentary associated with Lochner-era “liberty of contract,” underscores a key doctrinal boundary: private contracts—even those implicating confidentiality—do not create a constitutional entitlement to closed courts.

3.2. Legal Reasoning

A. Trial Closure: Presumption First, Exception Second

The court’s logic on closure proceeds in steps:

• Baseline rule: Civil trials are presumptively open; the Federal Rules (Rule 77(b), Rule 43(a)) embody that tradition.
• Balancing tool: Under United States v. Kravetz, privacy may sometimes defeat access, but the movant must show a sufficiently weighty countervailing interest and a sufficiently serious and concrete injury.
• Application to this case: Even accepting that family and financial matters are sensitive, courts routinely adjudicate disputes involving intimate finances and family dynamics. If litigant preference for privacy controlled, courts would become “publicly funded forums for private litigation, unaccountable to the public.”
• Rejection of constitutional reframing: There is no surviving constitutional “contractual privacy right” that compels closing a courtroom to enforce an NDA.

Notably, the First Circuit endorsed the district court’s recognition that Doe’s identity and lottery winnings were not “peripheral” but central to the litigation—making broad closure especially incompatible with public adjudication. The court also avoided reaching the First Amendment access argument (raised by Smith) by embracing constitutional avoidance, resolving the matter on common-law and procedural grounds.

B. Pseudonymity: “Exceptional Case” Means More Than “High Profile”

On pseudonyms, the court applied the Doe v. MIT framework and affirmed the district court’s discretionary judgment:

• Unusually severe harm (Paradigm 1): Doe claimed risks (kidnap, stalking, extortion, fraud, etc.) tied to “ultra-high-net-worth” status. The court accepted the district court’s view that this rationale lacks a limiting principle: it could apply to many wealthy or famous individuals. The opinion also emphasized Doe’s lack of sufficiently specific evidence demonstrating that the feared harms were unusually severe in his circumstances.
• Harm to innocent non-parties (Paradigm 2): The child’s privacy interests were addressed through standard protections (use of initials). The court found no abuse of discretion in concluding that revealing Doe’s name, without more, did not justify anonymity for the adult litigants.
• Chilling effect (Paradigm 3): Doe argued that denying pseudonymity would deter similarly situated litigants from enforcing NDAs. The court treated the “Catch-22” as largely self-created because the NDA contemplated court-issued injunctive relief without providing a confidentiality mechanism (e.g., arbitration/mediation). The implicit doctrinal message is that a party cannot convert the ordinary openness of courts into an “exceptional” circumstance simply because the party chose litigation as the enforcement path for a secrecy agreement.

A recurring theme is institutional equality: the district court’s reference to the oath in 28 U.S.C. § 453 (“do equal right to the poor and to the rich”) was not treated as animus toward wealth, but as rejection of wealth as a standalone reason to receive special secrecy accommodations in a public court.

3.3. Impact

A. Practical Guidance for NDA Litigation in Federal Court

The decision warns NDA drafters and NDA litigants that federal court is not a confidentiality-preserving venue by default. If a contract’s value hinges on secrecy, parties should anticipate the possibility that enforcing it through public litigation may expose the very information the NDA protects. The opinion does not forbid protective orders, sealing of narrowly tailored exhibits, or other standard tools, but it signals that wholesale closure and trial-long pseudonymity face a steep uphill climb—especially where identity is central to the merits.

B. “Sudden Wealth” Is Not an “Exceptional Case” Category

The court’s refusal to treat sudden wealth as an exceptional basis for anonymity is likely to influence future cases involving lottery winners, cryptocurrency windfalls, or other abrupt financial notoriety. The key is the limiting-principle concern: if “rich-and-at-risk” sufficed, pseudonymity could become routine for a wide and prominent subset of litigants, diluting openness norms.

C. Reinforcement of Transparency Norms and Media Oversight

The opinion’s framing—highlighting transparency as a “bulwark” of legitimacy and public trust—may be cited by media intervenors and courts resisting expansive secrecy requests. It also strengthens the rhetorical and doctrinal link between public party identification and the public’s ability to monitor the judiciary.

4. Complex Concepts Simplified

• Common-law right of public access: A longstanding legal tradition that court proceedings and records are open to the public unless strong reasons justify restriction.
• Constitutional avoidance: A principle under which courts resolve cases on non-constitutional grounds when possible, avoiding unnecessary constitutional rulings (here, the court did not decide the First Amendment access issue).
• Abuse of discretion review: A deferential appellate standard. The First Circuit did not ask whether it would have made the same decision; it asked whether the district court applied the wrong law, relied on improper factors, ignored important factors, or seriously misweighed proper factors.
• Collateral order doctrine: A narrow rule permitting immediate appeal of certain interlocutory orders that conclusively decide an important issue separate from the merits and that would be effectively unreviewable after final judgment (here, once identities were revealed at trial, the harm could not be undone).
• Pseudonymity “paradigms” (from Doe v. MIT): Four recurring categories where pseudonyms may be justified, used as guidance rather than a rigid checklist.
• “Catch-22” in confidentiality litigation: The dilemma where suing to enforce secrecy risks public disclosure through the litigation itself; the court treated this as a foreseeable consequence of choosing public adjudication as the enforcement mechanism.

5. Conclusion

Doe v. Smith reaffirms that federal civil trials are presumptively open and that party pseudonymity at trial is reserved for genuinely exceptional circumstances. The First Circuit’s central message is structural: public courts exist to resolve disputes transparently, and neither private NDAs nor generalized risk allegations associated with wealth can convert the judiciary into a private confidentiality service. Protecting a minor child remains an important interest, but the court signaled that ordinary protective measures (like initials) will typically be preferred over anonymity for adult litigants or closure of the courtroom.

For future litigants, the precedent’s practical takeaway is clear: if confidentiality is essential, it must be addressed through private ordering and narrowly tailored litigation tools—not by expecting broad departure from the open-court norm.