When Parties Waive Appeals, Even Erroneous Sealing Orders Stand: The Third Circuit Confirms Indefinite Post‑Judgment Sealing Orders Are Final Collateral Orders but Unreviewable by a Waiving Party

Introduction

In Bobrick Washroom Equipment, Inc. v. Scranton Products, Inc. (3d Cir. Sept. 26, 2025), the Third Circuit addressed a highly consequential intersection of settlement appellate waivers and the public’s right of access to judicial records. The dispute began as a false advertising case over compliance of toilet partitions with fire standards. The parties settled, the district court retained jurisdiction to enforce the settlement, and later a sealing controversy emerged during post-judgment enforcement proceedings. Two sealing orders followed: a broad, prophylactic seal during the pendency of enforcement motions (February 2022) and, after the motions were denied, an order effectively keeping everything sealed indefinitely unless the parties agreed otherwise (August 2023).

Bobrick appealed both sealing orders, arguing that the district court’s decisions were overbroad and contravened the public’s common-law right of access and Third Circuit precedent (including the Avandia line requiring specific findings and narrow tailoring). The appellate issues centered on:

• Whether the Court of Appeals had jurisdiction to review each sealing order;
• Whether a settlement’s appellate waiver barred a party from appealing a sealing order entered in enforcement proceedings;
• Whether mandamus could be used to circumvent the waiver and obtain review.

The court’s precedential opinion draws two clear lines: first, that indefinite post-judgment sealing orders are final and immediately appealable under the collateral order doctrine; and second, that a party’s express appellate waiver in a settlement bars that party from appealing even an allegedly erroneous sealing order arising out of enforcement of that settlement. The opinion also reconfirms that the public’s right of access is not extinguished by private waivers—the right remains enforceable by nonparties.

Summary of the Opinion

• Jurisdiction over the February 2022 Order: Dismissed as moot. That order was superseded by the later August 2023 order and no longer in effect; the court could grant no effective relief.
• Jurisdiction over the August 2023 Order: Exercised under the collateral order doctrine. An order that seals materials in perpetuity is final and appealable as it conclusively determines the sealing question, is separate from the merits, and would be effectively unreviewable later.
• Appellate Waiver Enforced: The settlement contained a broad waiver of “any and all rights to appeal” any order “arising out of” the settlement or an enforcement motion. The sealing order arose from the enforcement proceedings; the waiver therefore bars Bobrick’s appeal, even if the sealing order may be erroneous under public-access jurisprudence.
• Public Access Not Waived: Parties cannot waive the public’s right of access for the public at large, but Bobrick’s appeal was about its own private rights; a third-party challenge would not be constrained by the waiver.
• Mandamus Denied: Mandamus is not a substitute for appeal. Even if the prerequisites could be met, the court declined to exercise its discretion to grant this extraordinary remedy given the waiver.
• Disposition: Appeal of the February 2022 order dismissed; August 2023 order affirmed based on the waiver (without reaching the merits of the sealing decision).

Detailed Analysis

I. Factual and Procedural Background

Scranton sued Bobrick in 2014 for false advertising; Bobrick counterclaimed in 2016. The parties ultimately settled Bobrick’s claims and agreed the district court would retain jurisdiction to enforce the settlement. Crucially, the agreement contained a comprehensive appellate waiver: all orders “arising out of” the settlement or any enforcement motion would be non-appealable.

In 2019 and again in 2021, Bobrick moved to enforce the agreement, claiming Scranton failed to comply with customer notification obligations regarding non-compliant partitions. Scranton filed its own enforcement motion. After a six-day public evidentiary hearing in late 2021, Bobrick submitted thousands of pages of proposed findings and exhibits. Scranton asked the court to strike or seal parts of that filing, and separately to redact specific transcript pages referencing a confidential customer list (Exhibit 28). Without awaiting a response, on February 9, 2022, the district court sealed the hearing transcripts and all post-hearing filings wholesale, “subject to review” after deciding the enforcement motions, and ordered all future filings under seal.

On August 8, 2023, the district court denied all three enforcement motions. It then ordered the parties to meet and confer and to submit a joint sealing proposal within thirty days; absent agreement, the “status quo” from February 2022—i.e., blanket sealing—would remain in effect. The parties did not agree, so the indefinite sealing remained. Bobrick appealed both the February 2022 and August 2023 orders.

II. Precedents Cited and Their Role

• Collateral order and finality:
  • Will v. Hallock (U.S. 2006): Reinforces the narrow class of collateral orders that are treated as final when separate from the merits and effectively unreviewable later.
  • United States v. Smith (3d Cir. 1997); United States v. Thomas (3d Cir. 2018): Orders granting or denying access to court records are appealable as final orders.
  • United States v. Wecht (3d Cir. 2008): Pretrial denial of public access can be conclusive; subsequent developments need not be awaited to render finality.
  • Shingara v. Skiles (3d Cir. 2005): Practical finality embraced in access/sealing contexts; delay erodes the value of public access (“nobody wants to read yesterday’s news”).
  • Fang v. DHS/ICE (3d Cir. 2019): “The finality of an order cannot be conditioned on something that may never happen,” applied here to contingent “status quo” sealing.
  • Crystallex Int’l Corp. v. Venezuela (3d Cir. 2022): Post-judgment orders can have practical finality susceptible to immediate appeal.
  • Constand v. Cosby (3d Cir. 2016): Mootness framed around the court’s ability to grant effective relief—informing dismissal of the superseded 2022 order.
• Public right of access:
  • LEAP Systems, Inc. v. MoneyTrax, Inc. (3d Cir. 2011): Public’s common-law right extends to judicial records connected to settlements.
  • In re Avandia Mktg., Sales Practices & Prod. Liab. Litig. (3d Cir. 2019): Strong presumption of access; sealing requires findings of compelling countervailing interests, specific on-the-record findings, and opportunity for third-party input; narrow tailoring is required.
• Appellate waivers and settlement finality:
  • United States v. Gwinnett (3d Cir. 2007); United States v. Jackson (3d Cir. 2008): Waivers do not remove jurisdiction but guide courts to refrain from exercising it; courts must first assure themselves of jurisdiction.
  • In re Odyssey Contracting Corp. (3d Cir. 2019): Courts enforce civil settlement-based appellate waivers; clear intent to end litigation suffices even absent explicit waiver language.
  • United States v. Khattak (3d Cir. 2001); United States v. Yung (3d Cir. 2022): Criminal appellate waivers enforced unless a miscarriage of justice; exceptions are rare (e.g., a sentence unauthorized by law).
  • Tuscarora Wayne Mut. Ins. Co. v. Kadlubosky (Pa. Super. Ct. 2005): “Arising out of” equated with “but for” causation, supporting the conclusion that sealing arose from enforcement proceedings.
• Mandamus:
  • Cheney v. U.S. Dist. Court (U.S. 2004): Mandamus is not a substitute for appeal.
  • In re Abbott Laboratories (3d Cir. 2024): Mandamus is extraordinary; requires a “clear and indisputable” error, lack of adequate alternative remedy, and likelihood of irreparable injury—still discretionary even if met.

III. The Court’s Legal Reasoning

A. Jurisdiction and Mootness

The February 2022 sealing order was explicitly temporary, pending decision on the enforcement motions. When the court decided those motions and issued the August 2023 order, the earlier order ceased to operate; any appeal from it became moot because the court could grant no effective relief from an out-of-force order.

B. Collateral-Order Finality of Indefinite Post‑Judgment Sealing

The August 2023 order was different: it kept all hearing-related materials sealed indefinitely “unless the parties agree otherwise.” The court held this is a final collateral order. First, it conclusively determined the sealing question: attaching finality to an order contingent on a future event that might never occur would improperly leave the public right in limbo. The court underscored that “finality cannot be conditioned on something that may never happen,” and cited Wecht and Shingara to reject the notion that later developments should be awaited. Second, sealing and public access are issues separate from case merits. Third, such orders are effectively unreviewable later: the underlying case was already dismissed years earlier; moreover, the value of public access diminishes with time.

C. Enforcing the Settlement’s Appellate Waiver

The settlement contained a comprehensive appellate waiver: “All decisions and orders of the Court … arising out of this Settlement Agreement or any Enforcement Motion … shall be non-appealable, and the Parties hereby waive any and all rights to appeal any such decision or order.” The court read “arising out of” in a broad, causation sense—without the enforcement motions and related proceedings, there would be no sealing order. The order thus arose from the enforcement process.

Bobrick argued that because the sealing order implicated the public’s right of access, it should not be bound by the waiver. The court agreed that the public’s right is robust and that district courts must observe Avandia’s requirements. But Bobrick’s appeal asserted only its own rights. Parties cannot waive the public’s rights on the public’s behalf—but they can waive their own right to seek appellate review. The court expressly noted that a third party (member of the public or press) could still challenge the sealing order; the parties’ waiver would not constrain that separate pathway.

Bobrick also urged a “miscarriage of justice” exception, borrowed from criminal waiver doctrine. The court rejected this. Even assuming such an exception could apply in civil cases, this was not one of those “rare” situations. Two sophisticated businesses negotiated a settlement and consciously accepted unappealable enforcement oversight by the district court. For appellate waivers to have teeth, they must bind parties even when the underlying order might be erroneous. The court therefore declined to exercise jurisdiction and, consistent with its practice in enforcing appellate waivers, affirmed the order without reaching the merits.

D. Mandamus

Finally, the court denied Bobrick’s alternative petition for mandamus under the All Writs Act. Mandamus is extraordinary and not a substitute for the regular appellate process—here, contractually waived. Even if Bobrick could satisfy the demanding prerequisites, the court would not exercise its discretion to grant relief in light of the waiver.

IV. Impact and Practical Implications

A. Settlement Drafting and Enforcement Strategy

• Expect waivers to stick: Sophisticated parties that include sweeping appellate waivers—especially those covering orders “arising out of” settlement enforcement—should expect them to be enforced even when a district court later enters a questionable sealing order.
• Carve-outs for access issues: To preserve an avenue to contest sealing, negotiators should consider explicit carve‑outs permitting appeals of sealing or public-access rulings or requiring courts to apply Avandia’s standards, make individualized findings, and employ narrowly tailored redactions rather than wholesale sealing.
• Procedural guardrails: Parties can build process into their agreements: timelines for targeted redaction motions, obligations to confer, presumptions of unsealing after decisions, and mechanisms for judicial review prior to any sealing.
• Use third-party channels when necessary: If a party is constrained by a waiver, news organizations or other interested nonparties can move to unseal, intervene under Rule 24, and appeal. The court emphasizes that public rights remain intact for third-party enforcement.

B. Guidance for District Courts on Sealing

• Avandia compliance is essential: Even though this appeal was foreclosed by waiver, the opinion reiterates Avandia’s requirements. District courts should avoid blanket, prophylactic sealing; they must identify compelling interests, make specific findings, consider less restrictive alternatives (like redaction), and allow third-party input.
• Do not rely on indefinite “status quo” sealing: Orders that maintain indefinite sealing unless the parties agree otherwise are final collateral orders subject to immediate appeal. Courts should instead set clear, time-limited sealing with ongoing review and detailed justifications.
• Protective designations are not self-executing sealing: Labeling a document “Attorneys’ Eyes Only” under a protective order does not, without more, justify sealing a judicial record once filed or used in court proceedings.

C. Access Jurisprudence: Right vs. Remedy

The opinion threads a careful needle: it does not dilute the public’s common-law right of access, nor the Third Circuit’s strong presumption in favor of access under Avandia. Instead, it channels who may enforce that right on appeal. Parties may contract away their own ability to obtain appellate review; the public, which is not a party to the waiver, retains its independent enforcement pathway. The decision thus reinforces both the sanctity of settlement waivers and the structural safeguards for the public interest in transparency.

Complex Concepts Simplified

• Collateral order doctrine: A narrow exception to the final-judgment rule allowing immediate appeal of orders that conclusively resolve an important issue separate from the merits and would be effectively unreviewable later (e.g., indefinite sealing orders).
• Mootness: An appeal is moot if the court cannot grant effective relief—such as when an order has been superseded or no longer exists.
• Appellate waiver: A contractual agreement (often in a settlement) where parties agree not to appeal certain orders. Courts enforce such waivers so long as they are clear and voluntary, and generally even if the underlying order may be wrong.
• “Arising out of” language: Interpreted broadly to mean causally connected (“but for” cause). If an order would not exist but for settlement enforcement proceedings, it likely “arises out of” them.
• Public’s common-law right of access: The public has a presumptive right to see judicial records, including filings and transcripts. To overcome it, courts must identify compelling interests, make specific findings, and narrowly tailor sealing or redactions.
• Mandamus: An extraordinary writ used only in exceptional circumstances when there is a clear and indisputable error, no adequate alternative remedy, and likely irreparable harm. Not a substitute for an appeal one has waived.

Conclusion

Bobrick v. Scranton Products sets two important precedents in the Third Circuit. First, indefinite post-judgment sealing orders are final and immediately appealable collateral orders, even if the district court presents them as maintaining a “status quo” dependent on future events. Second, and more consequential for litigants, parties who broadly waive appellate rights in settlements cannot later appeal sealing orders that “arise out of” the settlement’s enforcement—even if those orders arguably flout the public’s right of access and Avandia’s exacting standards. The appellate pathway to vindicate the public’s right remains open, but it must be pursued by nonparties who are not bound by the waiver.

The decision underscores the need for careful settlement drafting: if parties wish to preserve the ability to challenge sealing or safeguard transparency principles, they must say so explicitly. For district courts, the opinion is a reminder that sealing demands rigorous, record-based analysis and narrow tailoring. And for the public and the press, it affirms that their independent right to seek unsealing persists, even when the litigants have signed away their own appellate recourse.