The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that discovery documents—including personnel files of priests—must be disclosed in lawsuits when the public interest in identifying wrongdoers outweighs privacy concerns. The court found that materials produced during pretrial discovery are presumptively public unless a specific legal protection applies. For construction subcontractors, this means documents exchanged during disputes are generally discoverable and may become public, even if they contain sensitive information about employees or third parties.
Discovery documents are presumptively public—assume anything you produce in a lawsuit could become public record unless a specific legal privilege protects it